Brava! How fabulous. I really would like to meet your sister one day. I used to have a steel trap memory but, no more. I once stuck a pussy willow bud up my left nostril––I was five or six––and it got stuck way up high. On reflection I realized in an instant how stupid that was, and immediately blamed it on my little brother who was two. He's lived with that as a false memory for years. Now that I've told, I guess I'll have to confess it to him as well. My mother told me to blow my nose and it popped right out! There was a great article in The New Yorker by Lydia Davis that I just read all about the memory of our school years. Highly recommend.
My hands remember the feel of my brother’s back, shoving him off the shed roof. He claims I was never up there. True, always been terrified of heights. Hmmmm
I don't think so. And if we do, it's never on purpose. If it is, readers shouldn't trust us. And if we've fucked up the truth, it's still part of us, because we are what we remember. I'm willing to think about Judy and the car, but it was so long ago that I don't feel guilty, just stupefied.
Yes, I agree. I think how our memory works (or doesn’t) might be a function of consciousness. It requires expanded and focused consciousness to apprehend truth and our minds protect us from what we’re not ready to remember or are not capable (yet) of seeing.
Sisters! Violent impulses erupt out of nowhere. Memory! Who knows? My sister was recounting what she described as a memory of something that happened to her. I said, “No, that happened to me.” She trusts my memory over her own. I am (of course) the older sister.
Your provocative post got me thinking. Doesn’t it shift based on our POV? If we climb a mountain, we have a different perspective from each viewpoint we reach. It seems like memory is like that too. The view expands. Or I guess we stay on one little outcropping and make it stay the same…then there’s everyone else’s narratives like your sisters! I feel like my version is the true one, of course. But I’m getting that everyone’s version is true for them and maybe true in general…when they clash as so many of our institutional narratives and societal narratives do in this moment…it feels chaotic and crazy making. People are losing their minds.
It's hard for me to imagine getting to a place where something so extreme as pushing a child out of a moving car would dissolve into what I remember. But I'm open to it. (People have already lost their minds, in case they had them in the first place. But that's bringing up politics so ignore that.)
What’s wild is my oldest sister pushed my second oldest sister out of a moving car. It’s family mythology now. They still argue about how that happened! But they do agree she “fell” or was “pushed’ out of the car. lol
Fascinating thread! I was just Journaling about this very thing. I've rolled this topic around on the page quite a bit and heres what I'm wondering. Our individual filters taint some of experience, leaving out some detail, magnifying other bits. Time goes on. We reminisce, vent, love, grieve, heal and for me I don't know that a memory changes but how I think about it might. I am learning to trust my memories.
I have to add this: My older brother was running away, he decided to take little Max with him in a shopping cart. They got about 6 blocks maybe 16 who knows. The point is my older brother is sure max was wearing under johns. I'm sure he was still in diapers. I think, I'm right. I'm a middle child—so many viewpoints to shift through.
Given that our mind remembers everything that happened to us from our first breath in this world, what we remember becomes hugely important…like those grapes…and the car ride. Also interesting is how memories trigger each other, revealing what we “forgot.” Love the exercise of thinking about what we forgot.
There is more than one truth. That's why my daughter and I had different stories about what had happened. Memories are like that. We remember through the lens of our very different experience.
Well, even if you pushed her while sitting in the backseat, how could you know the car door would be loose and open so she'd fall out?! I can't imagine a 4 year old would have the wherewithal to plot out that many steps out....right? 😅
On another note, I think we can merge memories together and conflate details from separate incidents. So who knows whose memory was actually more accurate.
Of course, there are numerous examples of times when your memory is correct and hers isn't. Unfortunately sorting THAT out can take a lifetime and actually be counterproductive.
This was not how I remembered it haha! My kids and I have this go round on a regular basis. My memory is always the wrong one. Siblings too. This was great! I also had this extraordinary experience when my kids were both gone (adults) and all of these traumatic childhood memories started coming back to me. It was as if my body/brain had to wait until I had the time and space to process everything without the worry of caring for my littles. As always Abigail I love your work!
We’re just human filters, aren’t we. Shit sifts through our blood and bones, and what we’re left with is all we know of truth. Until someone comes along with their version of shit that sifted through their blood and bones— their truth, and it looks nothing like ours. Makes ya wonder what’s real. Is there a secret third memory somewhere? Will we ever get to know it? Being human is fucking wild.
Neither will she. I'm reading *Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters* by Charan Ranganath and it's fascinating. I've discovered so many things I KNEW that turned out not to be so, and then have had to decide what to do with that new information, information I'd based my life on, things I'd believed about my self or my life that I'd built on. What we remember is *our* truth, and I think it's all that matters in the end.
Similarly, I've given my students a writing challenge to pull two of three things they've hung on to with no obvious reason, and ruminate on them. Why that? Why not something else? I don't have the two necklaces my first love Franke gave me, things that were so important I made a note of each in my calendar when I was 17. He'd kill himself later that same year. I don't have either of them. But I do have a cat pin—the hasp gone, one green rhinestone eye popped out, the gold paint flaked off—it was broken and looked like it had been run over and found in the gutter when it was given to me by Andy, box boy from the supermarket, who I thought was my boyfriend when I was 13. He brought me to the basement to make out, there was another boy down there waiting...
Why did I save that cat pin? Why did I let go of the necklaces? What we keep and what we let go of tells us volumes about who we were.
Some memories I had as a young girl seemed to cushion a fantasy I might have had until I can let it go, and see no way is that going to happen—clearly made up.
Here's the thing tho, schwesters: The tiny-beanshaped hippocampus thinks it's hot shit when it comes to memory, but, alas, is sadly mistaken (but supported by centuries in the "West" of men running religion- Christianity mostly- "science" and "enlightenment" —hello Descartes and "cogito ergo sum"—and bashing of women, bodies, and the physical realm of life and experience) BUT, of course, it's the body that keeps the score, to quote B van der Kolk. Our emotional and muscle memory, embedded in the "knowing" of our fascia, is where it's at. IN THE BODY.
I love the "what you don't remember" prompt, becasue I was like, how can you write about what you don't remember? Then you would remember it! But when you said what the student wrote, about not remembering different nurturing tender moments with her mother, a lightbulb went off! And of course, now that I think about it, I don't remember my parents fighting when I was a child, but I remember my father's silence that lasted for days, and the way he used to slam the kitchen cabinets and the silverware drawers in stead of speaking...
My xixter, brother, and I are ten years apart, my brother being the oldest and i was the baby. We were essentially 3 only children with distinct and different memories. I have very little memory from my childhood. So we don't play the memory game with each other. Our memories are our own, and unless we really work at it together (unlikely), our own versions will be our "truths." And that's that!
Brava! How fabulous. I really would like to meet your sister one day. I used to have a steel trap memory but, no more. I once stuck a pussy willow bud up my left nostril––I was five or six––and it got stuck way up high. On reflection I realized in an instant how stupid that was, and immediately blamed it on my little brother who was two. He's lived with that as a false memory for years. Now that I've told, I guess I'll have to confess it to him as well. My mother told me to blow my nose and it popped right out! There was a great article in The New Yorker by Lydia Davis that I just read all about the memory of our school years. Highly recommend.
I’m afraid to tell him!
Report back on his response!
My hands remember the feel of my brother’s back, shoving him off the shed roof. He claims I was never up there. True, always been terrified of heights. Hmmmm
Well, that sounds comforting!
Disappointing!
Memory is a shapeshifter. 👀
Independent of fact! what part of us is doing the shifting behind out own backs???
Memory is absolutely fascinating. No matter how uncomfortable it might make us.
Really uncomfortable. I wonder about our narratives. They all seem quite suspect. Are we making everything up? Methinks we are. 🥹
I don't think so. And if we do, it's never on purpose. If it is, readers shouldn't trust us. And if we've fucked up the truth, it's still part of us, because we are what we remember. I'm willing to think about Judy and the car, but it was so long ago that I don't feel guilty, just stupefied.
Yes, I agree. I think how our memory works (or doesn’t) might be a function of consciousness. It requires expanded and focused consciousness to apprehend truth and our minds protect us from what we’re not ready to remember or are not capable (yet) of seeing.
Sisters! Violent impulses erupt out of nowhere. Memory! Who knows? My sister was recounting what she described as a memory of something that happened to her. I said, “No, that happened to me.” She trusts my memory over her own. I am (of course) the older sister.
so interesting. that has happened between me and my youngest sister.
I am the oldest of the three of us, but that gives me no status at all when it comes to memory.
Lol.
Your provocative post got me thinking. Doesn’t it shift based on our POV? If we climb a mountain, we have a different perspective from each viewpoint we reach. It seems like memory is like that too. The view expands. Or I guess we stay on one little outcropping and make it stay the same…then there’s everyone else’s narratives like your sisters! I feel like my version is the true one, of course. But I’m getting that everyone’s version is true for them and maybe true in general…when they clash as so many of our institutional narratives and societal narratives do in this moment…it feels chaotic and crazy making. People are losing their minds.
It's hard for me to imagine getting to a place where something so extreme as pushing a child out of a moving car would dissolve into what I remember. But I'm open to it. (People have already lost their minds, in case they had them in the first place. But that's bringing up politics so ignore that.)
What’s wild is my oldest sister pushed my second oldest sister out of a moving car. It’s family mythology now. They still argue about how that happened! But they do agree she “fell” or was “pushed’ out of the car. lol
Wow. Maybe every family has this story. Poor us.
again lol - I needed a good smile. You guys keep going, this is great.
yes
Fascinating thread! I was just Journaling about this very thing. I've rolled this topic around on the page quite a bit and heres what I'm wondering. Our individual filters taint some of experience, leaving out some detail, magnifying other bits. Time goes on. We reminisce, vent, love, grieve, heal and for me I don't know that a memory changes but how I think about it might. I am learning to trust my memories.
Independent of fact! what part of us is doing the shifting behind out own backs???
Memory is absolutely fascinating. No matter how uncomfortable it might make us.
I have to add this: My older brother was running away, he decided to take little Max with him in a shopping cart. They got about 6 blocks maybe 16 who knows. The point is my older brother is sure max was wearing under johns. I'm sure he was still in diapers. I think, I'm right. I'm a middle child—so many viewpoints to shift through.
Also a middle child. 🙃
Oh my. I have 4 older, three younger, Mama's helper by memory.
2 older 2 younger. I’m the odd one out. The misfit.
How fun! We were all odd—Irish Catholic-stuck between heaven and hell. I'm proud to be a born again sinner.
Given that our mind remembers everything that happened to us from our first breath in this world, what we remember becomes hugely important…like those grapes…and the car ride. Also interesting is how memories trigger each other, revealing what we “forgot.” Love the exercise of thinking about what we forgot.
Thanks, it's a weird exercise until you start. And what we forgot is every bit as interesting as what we remember.
There is more than one truth. That's why my daughter and I had different stories about what had happened. Memories are like that. We remember through the lens of our very different experience.
Well, even if you pushed her while sitting in the backseat, how could you know the car door would be loose and open so she'd fall out?! I can't imagine a 4 year old would have the wherewithal to plot out that many steps out....right? 😅
On another note, I think we can merge memories together and conflate details from separate incidents. So who knows whose memory was actually more accurate.
Who knows is my conclusion too. Alas. Thank you.
Of course, there are numerous examples of times when your memory is correct and hers isn't. Unfortunately sorting THAT out can take a lifetime and actually be counterproductive.
Definitely counterproductive, Lisa. Thank you.
My brother and I have similar conversations. Enjoyed this.
Thank you. That's lovely to know.
This was not how I remembered it haha! My kids and I have this go round on a regular basis. My memory is always the wrong one. Siblings too. This was great! I also had this extraordinary experience when my kids were both gone (adults) and all of these traumatic childhood memories started coming back to me. It was as if my body/brain had to wait until I had the time and space to process everything without the worry of caring for my littles. As always Abigail I love your work!
Thank you, Rebecca. I am so happy you liked it, and reminded you of your own memories (which may not be faulty at all, but how the hell do we know?)
We’re just human filters, aren’t we. Shit sifts through our blood and bones, and what we’re left with is all we know of truth. Until someone comes along with their version of shit that sifted through their blood and bones— their truth, and it looks nothing like ours. Makes ya wonder what’s real. Is there a secret third memory somewhere? Will we ever get to know it? Being human is fucking wild.
Neither will she. I'm reading *Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters* by Charan Ranganath and it's fascinating. I've discovered so many things I KNEW that turned out not to be so, and then have had to decide what to do with that new information, information I'd based my life on, things I'd believed about my self or my life that I'd built on. What we remember is *our* truth, and I think it's all that matters in the end.
Similarly, I've given my students a writing challenge to pull two of three things they've hung on to with no obvious reason, and ruminate on them. Why that? Why not something else? I don't have the two necklaces my first love Franke gave me, things that were so important I made a note of each in my calendar when I was 17. He'd kill himself later that same year. I don't have either of them. But I do have a cat pin—the hasp gone, one green rhinestone eye popped out, the gold paint flaked off—it was broken and looked like it had been run over and found in the gutter when it was given to me by Andy, box boy from the supermarket, who I thought was my boyfriend when I was 13. He brought me to the basement to make out, there was another boy down there waiting...
Why did I save that cat pin? Why did I let go of the necklaces? What we keep and what we let go of tells us volumes about who we were.
Yes1 What we keep and what we let go of. Great assignment!!
Some memories I had as a young girl seemed to cushion a fantasy I might have had until I can let it go, and see no way is that going to happen—clearly made up.
I love this.
Here's the thing tho, schwesters: The tiny-beanshaped hippocampus thinks it's hot shit when it comes to memory, but, alas, is sadly mistaken (but supported by centuries in the "West" of men running religion- Christianity mostly- "science" and "enlightenment" —hello Descartes and "cogito ergo sum"—and bashing of women, bodies, and the physical realm of life and experience) BUT, of course, it's the body that keeps the score, to quote B van der Kolk. Our emotional and muscle memory, embedded in the "knowing" of our fascia, is where it's at. IN THE BODY.
True that. But my body keeps its mouth shut sometimes. But of course you're right.
Yup.
I love the "what you don't remember" prompt, becasue I was like, how can you write about what you don't remember? Then you would remember it! But when you said what the student wrote, about not remembering different nurturing tender moments with her mother, a lightbulb went off! And of course, now that I think about it, I don't remember my parents fighting when I was a child, but I remember my father's silence that lasted for days, and the way he used to slam the kitchen cabinets and the silverware drawers in stead of speaking...
which is all you needed to know. Glad it took you there, although I'm sorry for your memory.
Thank you for this! I'm late to the party but I'm just reading Safekeeping now and your conversations with your sister are my favourite! ❤️
Thank you for making me laugh out loud❤️🙏🕊️
My xixter, brother, and I are ten years apart, my brother being the oldest and i was the baby. We were essentially 3 only children with distinct and different memories. I have very little memory from my childhood. So we don't play the memory game with each other. Our memories are our own, and unless we really work at it together (unlikely), our own versions will be our "truths." And that's that!