Memories in bits and pieces

There's a song I can't get out of my head. It was by the Classics IV called Traces:

Faded photographscovered now with lines and creasesTickets torn in half,
memories in bits and pieces...

My first "real" girlfriend friended me on facebook. I hadn't seen or talked to her in over 35 years. Naturally, I didn't know her married name and didn't recognize her immediately, but after a quick Google search--since she friended me first, I don't consider this stalking--I realized who she was and was quite surprised.

Not a bad kind of surprise, mind you...

I accepted her friending and we've messaged each other a couple times since. I was rather blown away by her memory. She was mentioning things that even I had forgotten, and I consider my memory to be... well, never mind. Maybe her memory should be better than mine as my mind has gone into some kind of other worldly mode in the past few years. I think they call it aging.

In any case, I have the urge to write a whole bunch about my high school days again, but as I pondered those year--I actually should have been grading but this has been the best excuse to procrastinate without really realizing that I was procrastinating--I've come to realize that most of it is a collage of memories, no recollections of a string of events that might constitute a narrative. A kiss on the dance floor, an Japanese X-rated movie, her playing The Fish by Yes on the piano, giving each other the flu back and forth, Andy's Pool Hall, Sears, rabbit jacket, arguments, throwing up in her car after drinking too much champagne at the wedding of the band's drummer's brother... Geez. With all this, you'd think I could come up with something.

Well, maybe I just need to ponder a bit longer. Maybe she'll message me something I had forgotten and it will jog my memories more completely. Until then I will be satisfied with letting the bits and pieces wash over me and amuse me during the downtime of teaching and grading.