TOTAL RECALL

Photo by Scott Lord on Unsplash

Up until my late forties I wrote poems. I wasn’t a poet, but the idea of writing words that went all the way across the page felt alien, daunting, impossible. Until one day, it didn’t. But that’s another story. The first three books I wrote were fiction, much of it neatly culled from my life, the rest imagined. Then I wrote four memoirs. The first two were precipitated by loss, the third was a favor, and the fourth began as a celebration of being old. I am still writing—-small essays, using the word essay rather loosely, but at eighty-four, I am completely capable of forgetting what happened an hour ago, let alone yesterday. Besides that, whole swathes of my life have grown rather dim. What on earth could I find to write about? Well, I get to live in the moment, since there seems to be no alternative given the holes shot through my short term memory. But like most of us in our prime, by which I mean old, I remember moments. We may not remember what came just before or after, but moments remain. They show up when my mind drifts, or something in the present pokes at them.

If If I had a perfect memory of every bite of every sandwich chewed and swallowed, it might be hard to pick what stands out, because everything connecting to everything else might blur what matters. Might not place emphasis in odd places, moments you can be curious about. Why this? Why this seemingly tiny memory when entire decades have disappeared? But what with all that any given moment contains, and the long gone moments that reappear, there’s plenty going on for this old woman.

Many years ago I had a student with total recall. Sometimes what she was writing was absolutely fascinating in its perfect detail, packing her family for a summer vacation. The folding! The suitcases. Where the clothes had come from, who had worn them first, how she carefully folded each piece. She was a terrific writer. But other times, her story was buried in everything else she remembered of what was happening besides what happened. And you realize that a lot of terrific writing depends on what is left out.

I would be stupefied by total recall. I imagine myself stuck inside a steel trap, shaking the bars, hoping something would shake loose, some scrap I could pick up all by itself to ponder. Something to set me free. Life isn’t something that fits together like a puzzle, each piece locking into place with the one before and the one after. Not mine, anyway. Life is messy. There are leaks, gaps, contradictions, back steps. repetitions, changes that take a split second, shifts that take a lifetime.

What we have forgotten has had its say in what shapes us, although it is done more or less behind our backs. It wasn’t long ago that it occurred to me that forgetting is part of memory. If there is an explanation, draped in psychological lingo, I don’t want to hear it. I like it as a mystery, as a question without an answer. Now and then, something shows up out of nowhere, maybe wet with rain and out of breath, but it’s a good idea to open the door, welcome it home, no matter the message it brings. Then start writing.