Everything Old Becomes New Again...

“Everything old becomes new again.”  I’ve heard that all of my life.  I’ve always equated it with trends:  fashion, music (or at least, musical influences), and hobbies or leisure activities.  In the early 80s, I wore saddle oxford shoes and appreciated anyone who could pull off a pompadour and a leather motorcycle jacket like Brian Setzer.  Today, my almost-9 year old daughter is wearing the neon pink and yellow of my youth and, if the clothing racks in the department stores are any gauge, the Flashdance look and Jelly shoes are back.

I guess there’s something to that adage after all.  But maybe there’s more to it than style.  Old people enter our lives in new ways, too.  That’s always been a pattern in my life, anyway.  Years pass and, suddenly, someone who has been absent from my mind appears again and we pick up where we left off.  I love that.

Recently, some of the reconnections have been facilitated by social media.  Several years ago, I was in San Francisco, visiting a friend.  We went out on the town and were joined by one of her friends.  As we chatted, I learned that he had begun working at some new company called Facebook.  I had never heard of it but, encouraged by my friend and my new acquaintances, I signed up when I got home.  It looked interesting but I didn’t know if it was anything I really needed.  Over time, more and more of my friends signed up, and it became a great way to reach across the miles and converse with people I know and love.  All these years later, it’s been a way to share my life with family and with friends without much effort. 

I never expected to stumble upon people who were significant in my childhood – people who I always thought were forever going to reside in my memory but never again in my life.  Yet there they were.   There was Carlos, who taught me to fry plantains and to sit in the lotus position when I was six years old.  Uncle Charlie, who taught me to see the tiny elements in nature that busy people often overlook.  JoAnn, who kissed booboos and made sure I took a bath or ate something more than mac and cheese when my big brothers maybe forgot to ask.  Earl, who made me laugh with bad puns while making me cry with beautiful fiddle playing.  They were all there, right inside my computer screen.

Along with them, I found my first/oldest friend, Amy.  I always knew where she was, but now I could “see” her.  She led me to our old partner in crime (as much as one can have in 5^th grade), Ann.  Through them, an assortment of once-upon-a-time middle school friends were visible to me.  Then along came Denise, who was, no question, a high school partner in crime.  She took me on adventures, encouraged me to reach outside the familiar, and made me see myself from a different perspective.  We went our separate ways, as happens when growing up, but I often thought about her, wondered how/where she was and hoped she was happy.  Voila!  There she was in my computer screen and back in my life.  We’ve been face-to-face, we’ve hugged and laughed and it’s a wonderful thing.

Now, those reconnections are great.  I cherish them.  But they didn’t really happen naturally.  One or the other of us went looking and used technology to “stumble” upon an old friend.  Sometimes, though, what’s old becomes new in the most amazing ways.

I’ve often talked about my family’s penchant for taking in strays.  Stray people, that is.  There have been more teenage boys and young men living on my couch than I could ever possibly count because my mother would not turn one away.  So when we lived deep in the woods of Pennsylvania and my brother Rick was becoming heavily entrenched in the Bluegrass Music scene, it was not unusual to go to bed on Friday night and wake up Saturday morning to some guy named Roscoe playing the banjo on the couch where he slept.  One of these rambling pickers was named James.  I’m not sure why he was at our house.  As I recall, he may have been running from someone and didn’t want to be found.  What I do remember is that he was talkative, he was funny, and he was smitten with my sister Diane, who he said “looked just like Sally Field”.  He said this often, so I haven’t forgotten.  That was a long, long, long time ago.  Somewhere along the line, I heard that he’d attained some measure of success in Bluegrass but I never gave him much thought.

A couple of years ago, here in Georgia, my mother and I were at a bluegrass festival.  We didn’t know – or care – who was playing, we just went.  And there, on the stage, the headliner for the day, was James.  After his set, we approached, sure he wouldn’t remember us at all, and were met with giant hugs.  He DID remember.  In detail.  He asked about all of us by name, he thanked my mother for her kindness all those years ago, and he made it clear that we were etched on his heart, just as he was on ours. 

It’s a teeny, tiny little world and these connections matter.  Maybe we’ll never see him again.  Probably, we’ll never see him again.  But that moment mattered and it opened a file drawer in my mind that had been long stored away.  I kind of think that’s WHY we have these moments – to remind us who we are, where we’ve been, and how we got here.

When just one memory file is touched, floodgates open for me.  I can suddenly look at the road behind me and not just see where I’ve been, but every single brick or stone that got me to this point.

This year, I started a brand new job that I love.  It’s not a job I ever imagined or even knew as a possibility but looking back on the road behind me, it’s clear how I got here and I’m grateful for every step.

This week has been challenging with seemingly simple tasks complicated by unexpected roadblocks.  Every time I became frustrated enough to need a break, I was met with some odd little flashback to my teen years in the 80s.  A radio personality talked about Rick Springfield.  I saw a man walking down the sidewalk, wearing parachute pants (!!!) and carrying a huge 80s-style boombox on his shoulder.  Of course, these things unlocked the file drawer of that time and place and, suddenly, EVERY thing reminded me of that time.

Thursday morning, there was a staff celebration at the library where I work.  I was surrounded by people having a great time.  And the majority of the music playing in the room was straight out of my 80s teens.  Cyndi Lauper wanted to have fun and Kenny Loggins wanted to get footloose.  There was an organized dance, complete with the library costume character cat.

Around me, there was talk about the costume and how hot it was for the person inside.  *Spring!  File Drawer!*  Circa 1986, when I worked at an amusement park in my little beach town in Florida, I pleaded with management until I was permitted to be one of the park’s costumed characters.  Those costumes didn’t come equipped with cooling fans then, so all we could do was load up with ice packs and make our rounds in 20 minutes or less.  So I made a joke.  Something along the lines of “Back in my day, we were tougher!”, which prompted a conversation about my experience.  Casual chit chat, really, and then the other person pointed at the guy standing next to me and said “Jonathan’s from Panama City, I think.”

At this point of my story, I should tell you that on my first day at this job, I was introduced to Jonathan. He said he thought I looked familiar.  I thought he looked familiar, too, but my mind reasoned that he looked very similar to a local musician I know and that must be why he looked familiar.  There was no logical reason why our paths would have crossed.  So, for the past four months, we pass each other in the halls, talk about work-related things, and are seated just two offices away from one another, strangers who work together.

So now, because I’m nosy, I ask Jonathan if he went to Bay High School.  He did.  I say I bet we know some of the same people.  He asks when I worked at the park.  I tell him ’85 and ’86.  He says our paths probably crossed.  If anyone was standing back and watching us, they surely saw the gears in our heads turning and light of revelation in our eyes when we suddenly realized: “I remember you!” and the details began to just pour out of that long-closed file drawer.

The mind can do crazy things with these files.  This guy wasn’t just an acquaintance.  I worked with him every day for an entire summer.  I talked with him daily – about park guests, about music, about his plans at the end of the summer, the usual chatter typical of work friends.  We were kids, we travelled in packs. His friends, my friends and our mutual friends often ended up in the same places and the same parties.  He was smart, he was funny, I enjoyed talking to him and, after he and his BFF headed off to Georgia Tech in the fall, if he crossed my mind, it was just to hope they were both doing well.  Again, I was a kid.  Life marched on.  The file drawer shut.

Granted, more than 25 years had passed, but why didn’t the drawer open 4 months ago when he looked familiar?  I think the brain just couldn’t fathom a reason to make that connection.  There was no logical reason for a former hotel/radio/advertising/copywriter/tumbleweed professional to have any connection to a career librarian in suburban Georgia.  It didn’t compute.

Because, in my world, the brain is the last voice I tend to listen to, I have to wonder if all the recent 80s flashbacks weren’t sent to me by the People Who Live In My Head to remind me of a time and place where I really became the core person I am today.

Possibly, they are just suggesting that I need to go to the beach and squeak my toes in the sugar white sand of my “hometown”.  Either way, I’m enjoying the ride down Memory Lane and, just like my 1985 Sperry Topsiders are hip again, my Old Work Friend is now my New Work Friend. 

Everything old becomes new again.