A Mild Day Springs a Memory

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

You wonder what makes an ordinary day stand out in memory. Who takes the mental snapshots that we see when we look back through time?

There are no real snapshots recording the day, because there was nothing special about it. Nothing special at all. Janet Butler and I were 9 or 10. We had crossed Chestnut Street but instead of going to Gilroy's to buy candy or down Chestnut Circle to call on Ginny Coty, we stopped in a neighbors' yard to play on their swings. You could do that then. The swings were for everyone, bare wood and thick chains hung side by side.

Spring was in the air that day. You could smell it, the way you can smell it now. It was in the breeze and in the muddy ground. You could feel it, too, on your back; the sun like a compress. But it was winter, still, I know, because we were wearing boots, not sneakers, and the trees were bare and the sheets drying on the clothesline were cold and frozen in spots. We took off our jackets and flung them on the ground and swung wearing only our sweaters to keep us warm. They were both red - mine crimson, Janet's a dark, burnt coral.

Ever since that day, warm winter afternoons have always been Janet Butler days. That's what we call them in my house. Some memories fade. This never did. You hear a song that brings you back to high school. You hear it and for the first 10 times the song drops you at the gym door, the boys on one side, the girls on the other, Chuck Hibbett, the good-looking junior with a crewcut, a standout in the crowd. But by the time you've heard the song 20 times, Chuck and the gym are so far away you have to squint to see them - the memory an elastic that's been stretched so much it can't take you back anymore.

Not so Janet Butler days. These come along every year in the scent of a breeze. And just like magic, the day appears and there's Janet, a girl with a dare-me-not smile, brown eyes, hair flecked with gold.

This year these Janet Butler days have come early.

"Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a pe-a-nut last night. Last night I found a peanut, found a peanut, last night," Janet and I sang as we swung on those swings.

We used to get in trouble together. We talked in school when we weren't supposed to. We giggled in church during novenas. We made huge hiccupping sounds during sad movies. Our mothers said, "You two never know when to stop."

We didn't.

On that spring-like day we didn't stop until dark.  We swung, our hands as cold as the metal they clung to. But we kept on swinging because in the air was the promise of spring and when we jumped off the swing onto the squishy ground, we were reminded of all that was soft and hidden underneath.

Janet made up a song that day.  "Here comes the bride, all dressed in purple, stepped on a turtle and down came her girdle." How clever she was. We sang it all the way home. I sang it for my parents that night. I giggled. They sighed. What made this day permanent? The fact that it had a sound track? Or was it the word "girdle"?

Janet and I jumped rope, rode our bikes, played marbles and jacks, watched horror movies and talked about boys from the middle of second grade when we met, all the way through high school. But it isn't any of these days that endures intact. It's this single afternoon.

The day remains undistorted by time and appears unbidden, every year, when the light is right and the air is cool but warm, too, as if in the middle of winter someone has opened a door to spring.

Janet Butler days are magic. Of course they are. They're magic for everyone. They're spring in the middle of winter. They are a promise of things to come.