Wet Streets and Yellow Leaves

Let's turn back the clock, shall we? I'd like to give you an exact date, but I can't. My best guess will have to do, and that guess is November, about eleven years ago.

My life was at a proverbial cross-roads. I was living in a moment that just seemed so vivid, so important. At times like those, you think that the moment you're in is defining. Defining in a conclusive, put-a-period-on-it way. At times like those you can't see that life amounts to a string of defining moments. Each exists on its own, a microcosm, but all part of that endless string that ends at the grave. You can't see at that moment that no one is any more or less important than the one before it or the one to come. Hindsight casts a light uniquely its own.

It was a Saturday. The rain was falling steadily and the air was chilly. New Hampshire hadn't yet succumbed to the kung-fu grip of winter, but autumn had begun its slide into not-too-distant memory. The streets were strewn with a litter of bright red and yellow leaves, the rain pattering on them in a muffled symphony. The air was clean and smelled damp and fresh, the perfume of earth and the acrid smell of chimney smoke that associates itself with the coming months of cold.

I sat on the porch with a cigarette, the exhaled smoke mixing liquidly with my own hot breath and rising on the cool air. I felt miles removed from myself for the first time in what seemed like forever. I could feel the moment seem to grow, expand, becoming almost more than itself. I could almost taste the importance. Some defining moments pass unnoticed, exposed only by the scrubbing winds of time. This moment revealed itself suddenly, exposed by those steady fall rains.

I remember this moment now as if it were yesterday. I can still smell that wet, cleansing New Hampshire air. I can still remember the gears in my head turning, my perspective shifting to the rythm of the rain on wet leaves. This moment shaped me in myriad ways. You don't forget moments of such pure and utter awareness.

Later that evening it was a parade of people and beer and noise. We listened to The Vaselines and drank Newcastle. I remember talking to a Russian girl who I couldn't understand, partially due to her thick accent, but mostly due to the fact that she was insanely drunk. I remember being tipsy and walking in the woods, fumbling through the dark and laughing, trying to reach the top of a muddy hill so we could look down on the town. I remember lights twinkling through the mist. I remember there wasn't a shred of moon, and I often wonder how we navigated those woods in the dark.

I remember an otherwise unremarkable day that changed me in remarkable ways. That day defined New England for me in my own mind. I'll always associate it with the chilly rain on the leaves, the smell of smoke and the redemptive power of an unexpected moment that became something more.

A Certain Grosse Pointe Blank-ness

"Someone has come to me out of the past..." - Debi, Grosse Pointe Blank

I have a deep, abiding love for the film Grosse Pointe Blank. My first viewing of Grosse Pointe Blank was the one and only time I ever watched a movie, rewound the tape (this being back in the neolithic period of VCRs) and watched it all over again.

The past week, I've had cause to reflect on a certain Grosse Point Blank-ness that has emerged in my life. I have to attribute that quote, Grosse Pointe Blank-ness, to my old friend 'Suya (one of my recent re-connectees). She used it in an email and it inspired this line of thought. The past has been unearthed, so to speak. The sleeping dogs awoken.

I signed up for Facebook. Nothing spectacular there, right? Millions of people have done it. What I didn't expect was this overwhelming flood of faces from my past. I guess the true irony of it all was the timing. Not long ago, a relationship I was in skidded to a halt. I thought that this pairing might have potential, and when the train jumped the tracks it left me feeling a little punch-drunk. I'm going to be 40 years old next year. I think when you approach that milestone, you can't help but reflecting on exactly where the winding road you're on is leading. God knows I did. From being depressed to angry to sad to hopeful to right back where you started. Quite the ride on life's sick, little carousel. I guess in the end I just stood back to take stock and thought, "where the hell do I start?"

Enter Facebook. Rewind 20 years into the past. In a lovely bit of serendipity, I was given the perfect place to start - the beginning of my adult life.

There I sat, staring at the computer screen. In front of me were pictures of people I'd forgotten. Pictures of people I thought of fairly often. A litany of faces so familiar, but blurred around the edges by time. There in front of me was my past in all its glory. To some, this revisiting of not-so-ancient history may be a non-event. For me, this was almost like a cosmic nudge. After turning my back on the past for so long, I was given a window to look back.

"Everybody's coming back to take stock of their lives. You know what I say? Leave your livestock alone." - Debi, Grosse Pointe Blank

There's a certain wisdom in letting the past be the past. To "leave your livestock alone". Our past shapes us, whether we want it to or not. Sometimes it works on us for the good, while other times it just roughs us up and leaves scars. I guess when dealing with the past you need to walk that delicate line between learning and dwelling. Sometimes you need to let that water flow under the bridge. You need to put things in the rear-view and watch them fade into oblivion. However, I've learned that you need to make sure you don't forget. Forgetting leads to mistakes being repeated ad-nauseum. I have to admit, there are things from my past that I'd forgotten (intentionally, I believe) that have bitten me a few times over the years. What can you do but make a mental note, file under "don't be a fucking idiot" and move forward.

"As a graduate of the class of 1986, you are someone special. Remember, there's nowhere you can go that you haven't learned how to go in time. Whatever the hell that means." - Marcella, Grosse Pointe Blank

I never went to any of my reuinions. I'll admit right here that I was just incredibly ambivalent about the whole experience. Why would I want to see these people that had disappeared from my life many years ago? What would be the point? My thought process had relegated the past obsolete, I think now, in order for myself to avoid reflection. I desperately wanted to not look back, for reasons I don't know if I'll ever fully understand. Now? Now I've sat and exchanged messages with some of these people, and it makes me incredibly happy to have reconnected. I peek into these tiny windows into their lives, and I see glimpses of who they've become. I find that I want to sit down with some of them, as has been discussed, and I want to talk about then and now and everything in between. I want to embrace everything and look back and I want to stop pretending that chunks of my life didn't exist. That and I want to talk shit about people.

I sat the other night, twenty years later, and looked at pictures of the first girl I was ever really, truly in love with. Memories just came flooding back, good and bad. I realized how much I had swept under my mental rug. In addition to being my first real love, she was the first girl who ever broke my heart. Now, looking back, that fateful heart-breaking wasn't close to being the thing I remembered most about our relationship. There were so many other memories that overwhelmed that one. I think that's the perfect metaphor for looking back on things you've cast aside - you often diminsh so much good by trying to dispel a little bad. I was amazed when I realized I could remember exactly what the inside of her house looked like. I could remember exactly what we did on our first date. I could remember the moment when I realized I loved her. In burying the past to avoid refection, I'd accidentally buried memories like this. This is why these recent re-connections have been such a revelation to me.

"They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they've all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? 'I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?'" - Martin, Grosse Pointe Blank

I've had to admit something to myself the past few days. What really freaks me out isn't the unearthing of the past or these people, but how I've had to look at myself through this new lens. I have to put myself into the context of these narratives, and it's forced me to trace my own arc through life. I have to admit, I've looked at things in ways I haven't before. This is a mixed blessing. This new-found view has opened my eyes to a lot of bad patterns. On the flip side? It has opened my eyes to a lot of bad patterns. Someone may read this and think, "Wow, the level of this guy's emotional baggage is astounding!" That may well be, but I'm learning that when you keep that baggage where you can see it, you can slowly whittle it down and not forget it. I'm slowly learning the importance of this. After all, I am stubborn in my insistence that I learn things the hard way. It's refreshing, that quirk. No matter how aware I am of it, I just can't seem to change it. So, I have that going for me in the consistency department.

"I just find it amusing that you came from somewhere." - Marcella, Grosse Pointe Blank

I had an old friend from high school who moved away. He stopped admitting where he came from years ago. When asked, he'll just name other places in Pennsylvania that seem more...cosmopolitan than Camp Hill. This makes me equal parts angry and sad. His casting aside diminishes everything we shared when we were younger. His refusal to admit who he is and was is like a slap on the face. Also, I've come to realize, it shows me that in small ways I've turned my back on my past as well.

Maybe some would think I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill here. "What's the big deal? Lots of people lose touch and re-connect." For me it's just not that simple. This has pried open windows i'd painted shut years ago, and now the fresh air is a bit overwhelming. Welcome, but overwhelming.