On Memory

My memory is not what it once was. I have said this before. I remember the saying of it.

There was a period of time, my 20s, when I remembered things. I remembered numbers, faces, peoples’ favourite songs, the shoes they had been wearing the last time I had seen them. These things, these seemingly petty details, lodged themselves in my brain like bullets. I loved my wonderful memory, my attention to detail. I fostered it, exploited it.

Why did I remember these things? Why did I not remember other things? I could not recollect, then or now, for example, my earliest memory. I could not collect it from its depository in my brain. I have no doubt this memory exists. It might even be from infancy. But I can’t retrieve it – and is any information worth anything if it cannot be retrieved? I do remember the stories around pictures I see in my parents’ photo album. I remember them telling me the stories. I remember how many times I have heard the stories. I do not remember independent of the stories.

I remember sitting in the back seat of their car, at age 7, next to the puppy we had just bought for $25 from someone whose dog had had puppies. One of my parents was in the car with me, we were parked at the pet food store, and the other parent had gone in to buy puppy food. I remember being over the moon excited that we finally had a puppy. I had wanted one for the longest time. We named him Philip, after the weatherman on the CBC evening news, because he would have to be outside in all kinds of weather.

That day is my earliest memory. No; that day is my earliest memory that is not a story someone else has told me. I remember things earlier than that, like being on the airplane on our way to Italy when I was four years old, having to stop in Montreal because of engine trouble, staying in a hotel on the airline’s dime, my uncle breaking the key in the lock of the hotel room door. Just after we landed – just before we landed? – the announcement was made that the Pope had died. The plane full of Italians swooned and crossed themselves. Bad things come in threes; what would be the third thing? They all wondered.

But that is a story, not a memory.

Do I really remember walking up the street behind my mother, dragging my heels and begging for her to hold my hand, only to have her refuse because she didn’t want to pull me up the hill? Or did I just hear the story so many times. Do stories erase memories or enhance them. Does it matter.

Since having children I have had to push some of my memory aside to make room for other things. I only have room for a certain amount of knowledge and what I know about early infancy and toddlers takes its share of space. I have also begun to realize lately that I do not always remember things the way others do. My perspective, once so reliable, is only my perspective after all. Other people, with their own perspectives, have very different memories of the same event.

I might have learned this earlier, had I any siblings. I watch my boys sometimes, wonder what they will remember. I heard Trombone today repeating a story I told him about himself as a memory of his own. He is three-and-a-half now, he was two at the time of the memory. It is strange to build a past for someone, even if you built him from scratch and have been there since he was not. It feels somehow dishonest to hand him his memories ready-made, though I know it is my job, for now. What else does he have, except yesterday, this morning, ten minutes ago.

The day we
remember when
oh you must have been about 3 then

already it is fading. Already it is washing over me, watercolour instead of oil.

The older I get, the more I want to remember. I want to re-experience the richness of an experience, not just touching the fragments, the layers, the lessons, that have stayed with me. I know those are the important parts. I know that what lasts, what we learn from an experience, is really important. But to taste, touch, smell those moments again. To catch a glimpse of something not told to death, not analyzed and kept from breathing, a glimpse of something that takes my breath away. I guess it’s what I’m looking for, when I dig into my brain, searching for the beginning. I’m looking for the dance, the velvet, the moment. A breath, gone.