A Memory
One of the happiest memories I have is from when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. My brother and I were in the back of a car going somewhere, a sedan or van, but more than likely a sedan as I vividly remember a sun roof. We some how stumbled upon the idea that if the windows were down, and we were to rip up pieces of paper, the little bits would whip around the inside of the car like acrobats.
I imagined the idea started with something simple, I would rip off a piece of news paper and thrown it at my brother.Then as the wind poured in through the open window it would take the scrap and fling it cross the car. The eyes of my brother and myself, both a youthful light green, would slowly widen and a stroke of genius would simultaneously fill our minds. A crazed ripping of paper would consume us and in my memory, what seems to be hundreds, if not thousands, of little pieces of paper dancing, thrashing, hovering, and fluttering around the inside of the car would place us in a state of hysterical laughter and joy.
Throughout the whole of the experience however, I remember being worried and nervous. Whenever I would see a scrap of paper lunge out of one of the windows like a parachuter, I became filled with anxiety that one of the tiny pieces would fly directly into the windshield of the car behind us, causing them to spin out of control. However, for all that worry, with the countless pieces of paper sailing in the wind, directly in front of my eyes, I was captivated and entranced.
My brothers innocent laughter rings throughout the memory and his squinted eyes, gaping mouth, and excitedly flailing hands epitomize innocent joy in my mind. He seemed not to worry about the horrific car crash that I kept thinking of, or even our parents who were driving the car, seemingly unaware of our rambunctiousness.
Part of the reason I have a hard time remembering the type of car we were in stems from my rationalization of how my parents completely ignored us. The memory itself seems to have put up a Plexiglas divider between my parents in the front and us children in the back. My brother and I were in our own space, distanced from the troubles and thoughts that my parents were lost in. Who knows what ideas so distracted them that they could exist while ignoring the chaotic laughter of childish insanity immediately behind them.
My brother and I felt we were in a separate world, parted by a glass wall from our somber, serious parents. Yet no wall existed, it was only air and thoughts that were heavy enough to cause parents to forget about their children. The world was in front of us but we thought only of the dancing, paper ballerinas.
A picture of innocence was a glance away from my parents, but they never stopped staring in front of them.
Today, I try to keep my eyes out for a fluttering leaf.
-Edit- What I lost in this abstraction is how fantastic this memory is. It fills my body with joy every time I imagine I’m back in that car. It’s a memory that gives me hope.
