Long, long ago (1994) in a land far, far away (about 30 miles), Lela was enjoying her last day as a sixth grader at Sequoia Middle School. The choir teacher was retiring that year and Lela, being the goody-goody that she was, spent part of her day helping Mrs. Masters pack boxes and sort through papers. By early-afternoon, most things were sorted out of desks and off shelves and the student helpers turned to the cupboards and closets along the back wall. Suddenly, as Lela reached back into the farthest, darkest corner of the (three feet deep) broom closet, she made the most important discovery ever (in that particular room, on that particular day).
It was a 1987 yearbook that belonged to a girl who I’ll refer to as Buttercup in honor of the most awesome movie released that year. I was 6 in 1987, barely old enough to remember I had to remove my pajamas before putting on my clothes in the morning. In 1987 I spent my days struggling through “chapter” books that had about 3 sentences per page, and making ceramic sculptures that, no matter what I was trying to make, always turned out looking like big, blue blobs with eerie, black eye-sockets. And here was Buttercup. A girl who had been in Middle School at the time I was still occasionally showing up to class with a Rainbow Brite nightgown sticking out from under my dress. I was deeply impressed with her and her yearbook. Mrs. Masters, on the other hand, had probably spent her 1987 exactly the same way she had spent her 1994, and she had no interest in holding onto this book. When she told me to throw it away, I asked her if I could keep it and she said yes.
Over the next several years Buttercup’s yearbook roamed from closet to bookshelf to garage to storage space to garage to closet to pile of books on the floor next to the slowly deteriorating ikea shelf. Every once in awhile I’d come across it and think “why am I holding onto this thing? Do I really think I’ll ever be able to find Buttercup? I’m going to toss it out.” But every time I put it in the toss pile, I’d pull it back out at the last minute. It wasn’t taking up that much space, and how could I throw away someone else’s memories?
Last week, while I was making yet another naïve attempt to create more space by rearranging the clutter (as if I’m going to shift a pile of books and suddenly discover 50 square feet of extra space I never saw before) I came across Buttercup’s yearbook. It struck me that I’d never tried to find her online before and that this may be a more productive way of spending my evening than to continue pushing books around the livingroom floor. So I went to myspace, typed her name into the search area and discovered, to my astonishement, that there was a Buttercup Last-Name on Facebook and she lived in the East Bay!
So then I had to make a tough choice, do I want to register for facebook so I can message her or do I want to drop the whole thing? Being the hermit that I am, it was a tough call for me to make. But I couldn’t really turn back now that I’d come this close, so I, urgg, registered for facebook, and wrote Buttercup an awkward letter, explaining the situation and trying, delicately, to provide enough information about myself that she wouldn’t think I was a serial killer, and yet not enough information to put me at risk if she was one (What can I say? I am my mother’s daughter, and my mother happens to have worked for the public defenders office for many, many years).
The next day I nervously checked my email and was thrilled to discover I had a message from Buttercup. Not only did she not think I was a psychopath (which definitely would have been my first conclusion), she was thrilled to learn that her seventh grade yearbook, after going missing 21 years ago, was safe and recoverable. She was also impressed that I had held onto it for this long. We’re currently working out a suitable way to return the book to it’s rightful owner and Buttercup is looking forward to reading all the long forgotten signatures and messages.
To reach out to a stranger and hand them back a piece of their past is a surreal and wonderful experience, as is knowing that I was right to not throw that book away.
And, of course, I’m always grateful for the opportunity to score another point in defense of packrats. Go us!