Memory Therapy

August 22, 2013 — 3 Comments

forsythia

One week from today I will be visiting the town near Pittsburgh where I grew up and went to school through 8th grade.  I have not been there for almost 50 years, so things will be different…and yet the same.  I tune in to the daily tweets of @thomasmooreSoul because I find them to be just the right amount of therapy for a single day.  A long time ago he tweeted that talking about your childhood openly, telling stories you remember, is a great way to make sense of the past.  I have been exchanging pictures and comments with some of the former classmates for about 4 months now, as we prepare to meet in Oakmont, PA for their (I was already gone) high school reunion.  I can say that Tom’s advice about childhood stories is powerful.  Each one of us remembers different parts of our class  story;  I am sure being physically in our old school will spark some memories we have not discovered.  There is something unaltered about all our personalities that I can’t put into words, but next week maybe I will.

Before we all get hauled off to the memory wing of some care home we have the opportunity to get together to reminisce about our seriously good old days.  A few of us are already gone, naturally.  Such is life.  It ends.  I look forward to stirring up some memory/emotions from my childhood with the classmates with whom I shared them.  I have travelled the world, but this is time travel in a sense.  I am not sure what kind of deeper meaning will be revealed, but I expect it will be more helpful to my psyche than years of analysis might be  (I am too thrifty to find out).  Buckle up, gentle readers, and prepare to time travel with me to the ‘Burgh next week…back to the future.