Precious Memory

 

I love dreams: the weirdness, the plasticity, the ethereal quality of them. Often I lie in bed in the morning and play with them in my mind. You can probe them, shape them, and sometimes even continue them.

Memories are much the same. The same plasticity. Scientists say that every time you take a memory out of long term storage and review it, you change it ever so slightly. It's easy to distrust memories for that reason. And as the years go by, sometimes you wonder if they ever happened at all.

For instance I remember riding my mountain bike through Fry Park, a backcountry meadow near Flagstaff, and from out of the trees ran a herd of elk. They actually ran along side of me for a while, before speeding away and crossing the road and disappearing into the woods on the other side. In my memory some were bugling. It is one of my favorite memories. As I've retold the story and reexamined in my mind, I had began to doubt it's authenticity. Surely it hadn't happened like that. Surely, I just saw them running close by or crossing the road in front of me and just embellished it. And of course they weren't bugling in the daytime...

But then it happened again.

I was riding my gravel bike out on Sycamore Canyon road. As I came up over a hill, I saw a herd of antelope crossing the road. Half were across the road and half not, when they noticed me coming. Both groups turned and ran down the side of the road. As I was on a downhill slope, I was moving quickly and soon had antelope running on both sides of me. For one thrilling moment, I was part of the herd! Oh to be an antelope running free through the desert! For a brief second I maintained pace with these beautiful graceful creatures and then they shifted into another gear. With jaw dropping speed the antelope on my right surged ahead, bounded across the road and both groups vanished into the desert hills without a trace.

Leaving just a memory.

It confirmed the old memory and what I already knew to be true: riding a bicycle down desert roads or forest trails, you see more wildlife than even hiking. You are on them so quickly and quietly that they are caught by surprise. (Earlier that day I had rode through a herd of range cattle who just stood in the road and stared at me—making me slow to a crawl and weave carefully in between them). I shouldn't have doubted the memory. I should have celebrated it. Even if it wasn't 100% historically accurate, it was emotionally genuine. And like all great dreams and memories, should be savored without guilt.