The Miracle of Memory

I was thinking of the past...

Ezra, once upon a time.

When I was a kid, my parents took me to the Santa Monica Pier amusement park. All of the rides were awesome, the ones that seem so lame today.

I was on the grandest of all the rides when my baseball cap flew off my head. I imagined then that the hat was long gone, that it rose to the stratosphere or had been snatched by a seagull or sunk into the ocean. Then, seconds later, on a different part of the roller coaster, the hat landed on my head. I grabbed onto it and shrieked and knew that God had touched me.

Mysteriously, my life has continued without stoppage from the moment I was born until that miracle until now. With the exception of deep sleep and when I was put under for my wisdom teeth removal, I have been around for the whole thing. Most of it I cannot recall, but a lot of it I can.

Another memory sticks out. I have a fire hat on, and I’m running around my preschool. I fall and climb and tower over and laugh and roll along the carpet until I find myself standing alone, watching everything unfold as a spectator. I remember pondering whether other people were anything like me—if they too had a mind that thought things—or if I was basically the only human. How lucky would I be to be the only person! I remember thinking.

Memories like these dance in my mind like GIFs. They last only a few seconds until I snap back into the present, they begin again, or another memory comes to mind.

The other night, when, for the first time in a surprisingly long time, it felt like I had completed all of the tasks I needed to, I sat down, crossed my legs, and tried to retrieve as many memories as I could from my childhood, or from my teenage years or adulthood.

The moments came to me like popcorn: at the beginning there were a few, then they all started popping. Food fight, circle time, gym class, the mall, soccer practice, road trip—the list goes on and on.

My trove of memories only grows as the days and years pass. Like the universe, it goes from infinite to even more infinite.

Someone once told me that every time you look back on a memory, the memory changes. You remember something that didn't happen, you forget something else. Given this truth (which, let's face it, is probably true), cynics would say that memories are no better than dreams. The strictest of meditators would say “there is no there there.” But, I would respond, in memory is something that really happened, something I know for certain I actually got the thrill of experiencing. Something that is just as much a part of me as a finger.

I am not after any kind of secret when I look back on past Ezra. I am after this thrill, along with another feeling, one of helpless spontaneity. In my memories, my past self always seems to have known exactly which way was the right one to turn, even though this definitely did not always seem like the case at the time. As I write this I am at peace, and so everything seems mystically preordained. Everything happened for a good reason. There was no wasted time, no reason for despair. The truth for now is that all is (somehow) innocent.

As I go through everyday life, driving or in line at a store, I often find myself smiling or laughing as I think about some silly or beautiful thing that happened once. The memories press on my mind like a masseuse’s knuckles on a sore shoulder. Sometimes, I am moved so much by my recollections that I am brought to tears. I am grateful for what now I cannot have but at one point was mine—as inconceivable as that loss so often seems.

My memories make up a precious place that only I get to inhabit. Here, I can walk slow and stay awhile, for there is no matter, no substance.

Asking questions is pointless. There are no answers. I get to hang around, and that's enough.

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