December 9

Orphaned Memories

mills:

There are many posts circulating today concerning memory and forgetting, topics of significant personal interest to me; most seem to stem from the NYT’s recent obituary of HM, a man who –like many of Oliver Sacks’ most notable patients- illuminated in his dysfunction an aspect of how our minds work. Benjamin Hilts’ father, it emerges, actually wrote what sound like a compelling book on HM and the problems of memory.

The problem of forgetting is the most commonly contemplated aspect of recollective anomaly: why we don’t remember some event, some person, some period of life, some set of feelings we had for someone, some fact. That our identities rely on the aggregation of memories is demonstrable in cases like that of HM, and movies like Memento aptly portray how horrifying the prospect of generalized forgetting is: without that stable ground, who would we be?

(Note that the totalitarian assault on memory in the form of the revision and denial of history has a similarly destructive and demoralizing effect on nations).

But another problem interests me, too: the problem of orphaned memories. These occur with greater and greater frequency as I age, but I don’t know who else has them.

I recall a stone plaza before a dull, dark church; across the narrow streets on either side are old buildings. There are perpendicular commercial signs above the doors, but I don’t see what they say. It looks to be Europe, and I think I am with my friend Chris. But is this a memory of a place we were, or a memory of a dream?

I was at a darkened restaurant with checkered red tablecloths; I think there were other children there, perhaps after a field trip, although there were parents, too. We are eating crawfish. The parking lot is dusty. It is on the outskirts of town. Is this the recollection of a passage in a novel? I seem to think it is my memory, but how can I verify this?

These memories without contexts are usually visual, but since I tend to remember dreams sometimes years later, I am never able to pin down whether they are real; that I might lose the memory entirely frightens me, so I revisit them over and over, hoping to edify them and, perhaps, accidentally spark some connection to a narrative place-marker.

It is worth reflecting on the implications forgetting has for our identities, our selves; but it is also worth wondering what misplaced memories might mean. If I cannot remember an event, do I avoid the effects of the experience? If I cannot place a memory, is it still part of the tapestry of my personality?

Memory, the basis for everything we are and so many of our quarrels and despairs, is remarkably fallible.

A story in response.  From Douglas Coupland’s Life After God

We will talk some more if it is a warm day and the city before us will glow gold, a dozen construction cranes transforming its profile almost by the hour.  She will say, “Thousands of years ago, a person just assumed that life for their kids would be identical to the one that they led.  Now you assume that life for the next generation — hell life next week — is going to be shockingly different than life today.  When did we start thinking this way?  What did we invent?  Was it the telephone?  The car?  Why did this happen?  I know there’s an answer somewhere.”

We will talk some more.  She will remind me of a night the seven of us had back in 1983.  “You know — the night we drank lemon gin and we each stole a flower from the West Van graveyard for our lapels.”

I will draw a blank.  I won’t remember.

“Oh, Scout, don’t blank out on me now— you weren’t that drunk.  You gave me all that great advice at that restaurant downtown.  I changed schools because of that advice.”

I will still draw a blank.  “Sorry Julie.”

“This is truly pathetic, Scout.  Think. Markie went shirtless down Denman Street; Todd and Dana and Kristy got fake tattoos.”

“Uh — brain death here.  Nothing.”

Julie will become obsessed with making me remember: “There was that horrible brown vinyl 1970s furniture in the restaurant.  You ate a live fish.”

“Wait! I’ll cry, “Brown 1970s furniture—I remember brown 1970s furniture.”

“Well thank the Lord,” Julie will say, “I thought I was going mad.”

“No, wait, it’s all coming back to me now…the flowers…the fish.” Like a thin strand of dental floss the entire evening will return to me, inch by inch, gently tugged along by Julie.  Finally, I will remember the night in its entirety, but the experience will be strangely tiring.  The two of us will sit on the warm concrete steps quietly.  “what was the point of that story, anyhow?” I will ask.

“I can’t remember,” Julie will say.

The two of us will be in a bit of shock, me more than Julie, over the nature of memories — of how they’re all stored in the brain somewhere, but how they can get lost or simply misfiled or God only knows what.  Had Julie not sat there and coached me through the memories of that night, I would have gone to the grave without ever having remembered what was in fact a magical night in my life.  And so what would have been the point of having lived that night at all?  And so the two of us will be quiet.

09:59 | Comments | 15 notes

  1. rd67 reblogged this from mills
  2. restlessruminations reblogged this from mills and added:
    ‘orphaned memory’ this morning while driving into...I remembered part
  3. ismycopilot reblogged this from mills and added:
    A story in response. From Douglas Coupland’s Life After God We will talk some more if it is a warm day
  4. noraleah reblogged this from mills and added:
    It’s bright, so bright...an overexposed photo with just
  5. benjaminhilts reblogged this from mills
  6. mills posted this