the persistence of memory.

You never know when a memory might come in handy. I watched a movie about George M. Cohan the other night, and it reminded me of the fifth grade. I was in a county-wide choral group that practiced and practiced for months for one performance at the old high school where the only people in the audience were our parents. We sang a bunch of songs that we had never before heard in our eleven years, but they were just songs that were written before 1982. Two of them were Cohan's: "Grand Old Flag" and "Yankee Doodle Boy." We also sang a simple tune about cowboy life called "My Home's in Montana," and it is that song that I remember more than any other. We did not sing "The Good Old North State," which is a shame, because I can never remember the words. However, this song I can write down from memory, just like I sang it in the car to Josh the other night.

My home's in Montana.
I wear a bandanna.
My spurs are of silver.
My pony is gray.

When riding the ranges,
my luck never changes.
With foot in the stirrup,
I gallop away.

There was a group of kids from each elementary school, and we all practiced with our individual school music teachers before coming together right before the performance. The director told us not to lock our knees. She told us that if you lock your knees for too long, your brain will not get enough oxygen and you will pass right out. Even at eleven, there seemed to be something amiss to me about the idea of all the oxygen in your body getting trapped in your lower legs while your brain sufficated. Surely this was a design flaw. More likely it was misinformation.

But it's true that locking your knees will make you pass out, because one kid didn't listen and he passed right out and off of the back of the bleachers. He was standing on the back row, where if you looked behind you, the four-foot jump down to the stage looked like a drop into the abyss. Just looking at it made you more likely to fall, like a cartoon character noticing that he is standing only on air. Maybe he had vertigo from the view, but the director said he locked his knees and used him as an illustration for years to come.

That is not my memory. It is the memory of my friend Amy, who was not yet my friend at the time. She went to a different elementary school, but still came to the old high school to sing "My Home's in Montana." The boy who fell off was in her class. Only years later, after we had met and become friends, did we discover that we had both been in the choral group. It was she who told me about Justin being the kid who fell off the bleachers. I didn't remember it at all, though I was there, but after that, every time I saw Justin, I thought of him at eleven, locking his knees out of nervousness and a desire to have good posture in front of everyone's parents. I even picture it in my head, as if it were my memory. Sometimes I forget that I don't remember it, and someday I will probably forget altogether that I stole it from Amy.

My memory is of being nervous. I stood next to my friend Laura in the third row (it could have been the second, but I think it was the third, definitely not the back). And I was so nervous. It's sweet, really, the things one cares about at eleven years old. It's like listening to my brother's kids talk about the things that matter to them, where I go from wistful at their simple lives to frustrated at their near-sightedness. At eleven years old, there was nothing more terrifying that singing in a group of fifty kids in front of a bunch of proud and indulgent parents.

Laura and I held hands: clammy, shaking little hands. Maybe it was just after each song, a quick strong grasp to reassure each other that we had made it through another one. Or maybe it was the whole time, with a squeeze between each number. I don't remember.

Which reminds me of being thirteen and on a plane for the first time, so so nervous again, taking off from Charlotte in a seat next to my sister. My mom never gets tired of telling people how we held hands, even though we didn't really get along then. It used to embarrass me when she told that story in front of me, but I suppose that by telling it here I am reclaiming it.

These are a few of many memories floating around in my head, some more prominent than others. Holding hands with my sister is much clearer, because of Mama's frequent retellings. I hadn't thought of holding hands with Laura for years and years, and I wonder why I remember that and the words to "My Home's in Montana," when I don't remember what must have been a thrilling fainting incident. And if I hadn't watched a movie about George M. Cohan, maybe the clutching of our nervous hands would have fallen into abyss, lost like a library book put back in the wrong place.

I have discovered that writing is just the re-use of memories. At first, it feels like cheating, like plagiarizing real life. I feel like I have a dirty little secret, and if you knew that I stole that touching scene of the little girls holding hands straight from my childhood, you would think less of me. I long ago accepted this part of the creative process. Maybe there are true innovators out there, but for me it is about pulling things from the archives and putting them back together such that they are more than the sum of their parts. Even if a memory is thrown in as a little aside, its verisimilitude adds weight. I had no idea when it was happening how beautifully illustrative it would be for me in the future.

Josh writes off bands for being derivative, and indeed there is lot out there that is little more than restatement. But then again, every piece of art is inherently derivative because humans are derivative. Me and everything that comes from me is derived from everything that's ever happened to me. If there is nothing new under the sun, there are still infinite ways to combine what is old.

So I am archiving. I try so hard to pay attention as much as possible for the little things that I may need to pull off the shelf later. I may never need the memory of Laura's shaky hand in mine or the way the bleachers look from the top row or the lyrics to "My Home's in Montana," and I may re-forget it all until I happen to spend an afternoon reading old blog posts. But now it's saved somewhere, so that if I ever have need of its hidden significance, it is there for the taking.