Memory

I have a very clear and specific memory. I was 10 or 12 years old. Sometime around 1960, my grandmother took me and my sister (8 or 10) on a plane (probably a DC-3) – our first plane ride – from Wichita to Oklahoma City, where we had an uncle and aunt who owned a motel on Route 66. Our parents drove and met up with us. At least as I remember. If it was 1959, my uncle Lyle drove me in his golf cart behind the motel, away from the lights of the highway, to see the flyover of the Russian satellite Sputnik (I do know this happened). This was my first airplane ride. Or not. I recently asked my sister and mother what they remember about this trip, and neither one remembered anything. “I'm not sure your memory is serving you well,” is how my mother put it. Probably not. Which is what’s weird. We remember what we remember, even when it doesn’t conform to what actually happened. We make things up. We create our past, we create and shape our reality. Not purposefully, not deceptively. Just because that’s the way the mind works. Memory is not fact.