Is it possible for two people to share the same memory of an event that never happened? Or is the mere idea of such, so profound it simply defies mortal explanation.
To hear my very best friend tell the story, I taught myself the art of tightrope walking when I was in my early teens.
Now, before your eyes grow wide in amazement, I must say on our behalf, subsequent attempts to inch marginally close to repeating this feat, even at the height of my physical fitness years later, came up remarkably, shall we say, flat.
Yet, the Summer of 1976 will remain an engrained shared memory of Laura’s Balancing Act Wonder!
Let’s start with the typical weight of a preteen midwestern girl whose warm weather day were spent moving. From sunup to sundown this freckled-faced, Nancy Drew wannabe adventurer was endlessly moving in the woods or treading seaweed-laden lake water. At just under five feet, she would have to weigh 80 pounds or something thereabout, right?
Okay, now you have a sketch of me.
Now picture the cracked concrete patio of an old stone house with two paint-chipped patio chairs prominently in the middle. I am sure there was other furniture, like a table, maybe a clay pot, but neither of us recall. Only the milkman’s insulated box in the corner marks the periphery of my mind. What my best friend and I both vividly do remember is a string tautly tied between these white wooden chairs with six feet between them. Not a wire, nor a rope, a string!
In hindsight it is possible it was twine. “I mean, it would have to be right?” For upon this tiny thread of a tightrope, I apparently not just learned, but mastered the art of funambulism three feet off the ground.
The law of physics would insist that the minute I stepped foot on anything smaller than a one-inch rope, that string would have broken, or at the very least caused one, if not both of the chairs to topple inward.
Well, apparently not for Laura the Balancing Wonder!
You see I somehow launched myself onto that string, although neither of us remember what was upon my feet. “Maybe I was in my faded pink toe shoes”? You know, the ones with that silk ribbon that crisscross up your ankle? Although I think I would have long outgrown my ballet shoes by then. “Surely I wasn’t barefoot”? Athough that would really make for an even richer story. Somehow, like so many others, that fairly important detail of this memory escapes us.
Yet what doesn’t evade our memory is that I confidently walked that string, not just once, but confidently turned and fancied my way back, rather quickly, to my starting position. How I dismounted is lost to the years, as is whether my best friends ever tried her prowess on the string.
Also is lost is what we did immediately after. “Did we simply go inside, make a Wonder bread sandwich, and plan our next amazing adventure together? “
Oh, the minds of teenage girls. Fickle, yet fierce.
After all these years, there is something I do know for certain. I taught myself something remarkable that Summer of 1976 and it wasn’t learned on a string. It is a lesson that has been engrained within me with every passing year with my very best friend of 58 years. The heart has a way of treasuring the best in us. When another sees a light in you beyond what is possible, cherish that bounty for the rest of your days.
Friendship, a gift beyond measure.
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Musings from Karma Vista 