Memories
Before I get to the actual writing part, let me tell you the genesis story of this particular post.
Usually, when I get an idea for a possible blog post, I scribble something on a piece of paper and leave it next to my laptop. When I sit down to write, I'll pick something from the paper, or if I have something else in my head, I'll start writing that. By now, I have nearly a dozen blog posts in various stages of completion, saved as drafts. When I want to write, I'll look over my drafts first, to see what I can work on. If nothing inspires me, I'll check my scribbles on the paper and start something new.
A couple weeks ago, I had an idea that I wanted to explore but I was already on my blog page, so I typed the title "Memories" and saved an empty page as a draft. And now, of course, for the life of me, I can't remember what I wanted to write. Sigh
And now, let's make up our regularly scheduled blog post.
Years ago, when I was working in Foreign Country the first time, one of my dear friends AR wrote one of those notes on Facebook where you answer random questions about yourself. Only AR liked to blaze her own trails and she turned it into this long, rambling, free-for-all manifesto of "This is what I want to say". I loved her format, so I copied it (and referenced her, of course) and added my own personal spin. It turned into an even longer, even ramblinger note that seemed to go on for days, in which I gave a shout-out to a bunch of my friends towards the end, telling personal anecdotes about my relationship with them. A bunch of people, including those friends I had written about, commented on the precision of my anecdotes and on my memory.
Memory. It often seems such a fickle thing.
How is it that I can remember the plot lines of Sweet Valley High books I read when I was 13 but I don't remember the ending of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I read last year (for the second time)? How is it that I can remember that I bought my blue striped shirt in Ross, but I can't remember from one day to the next to put water in the radiator like my Main Squeeze told me to after I reported a leak? How is it that I can remember the exact location of where I took a photograph of a particular flower but I can't remember when Memorial Day is?
Our memories sometimes go beyond the mental realm, don't they? They sometimes come to us through our bodies. Think of the particular way that smell evokes memory.
When I was in high school, I was good friends with these twins from my dance group. They lived in a different state in Mexico, so every summer, they'd go back home. It was such a sad time for me because I missed them. One year, I gave them one of my button down shirts and I asked them to wear it for a few days and give it back before they went home for the summer. I didn't care which one wore it. They both smelled the same, since they both wore the same cologne. They thought it was a strange request, but they had long ago accepted that I was a strange girl. So they did what I asked. When they returned the shirt, I sniffed it to confirm that it smelled like their cologne. I slept with the shirt near my pillow all summer.
Fast forward about a decade. I'm living in Seattle, working downtown, and taking the bus everyday to work. My commute was about 45 minutes so I would often read on my way to work. One day, I was reading and at one stop, someone got on and walked by me. The twins! My entire body reacted to that smell: My heart started racing, my muscles tensed, my eyes opened wide. The smell of the cologne brought back their memory so instantly and vividly, that I even looked around to see where they were. Of course they weren't there. Just someone who happened to be wearing the cologne they used to wear.
The sneakiest memory trick, in my opinion, is how we remember places.
I left Mexico City when I was 3 years old. The memories that I had about Mexico City from that time consisted mostly of snapshot-like images. I told my mami once that I seemed to remember being in a pre-school with other children, but I distinctly remember that the walls were glass. She confirmed that the pre-school I went to did indeed have glass walls. I only have about half a dozen of these snapshot memories. My mami and I went to Mexico City again when I was about 5 years old. I was already speaking English at that point and I was a novelty with my cousins who would make fun of how I called my mami "Mommy", all gringa style. One memory I have from then is of going down the green stairs in my grandfather's house with my cousin M, who is closest in age to me. We went down the stairs on our bums, scoot-bump-scoot-bump-scoot-bumping our way all the way to the bottom giggling at our cleverness.
The next time I went to Mexico City after that time, I was 21 - sixteen years later. My mami and I stayed at my grandfather's house. When I walked in and saw the stairs, my first thought was "What happened to the other half to them?" They looked so small! But other than their size, they looked exactly the same as the stairs in my memory.
After we left Mexico City, I grew up in New Castle, Delaware, in an apartment complex. The complex consisted of a series of four buildings arranged in squares around central courtyards. There was a playground, a pool, a hill behind the playground, parking lots, grassy areas with small pine trees, and streets that were safe enough to ride our bikes on. We moved from New Castle when I was 12.
When I was 21, I had an opportunity to pass through New Castle, Delaware again with Ex-husband, who was my New Boyfriend at that time. From memory alone, I told him where to get off the freeway, where to turn, where to park in the apartment complex. I asked him to park in front of the building where I used to live. We got out and walked around. Again, everything looked so much smaller! We even walked into the building, up to the second floor where I lived, back down and out the back to the courtyard, which looked so much smaller than I remember it. That courtyard is where I learned to summersault, to do cartwheels, to ride my bike. How could it have been so small? Where did all the kids fit in such a small courtyard?
This phenomenon of the places from our childhood shrinking when we become adults is not uncommon. I've talked to other people who exclaim, "Yes! That happened to me too!" What I wonder is how our minds work to save the information from our short little perspectives, keeping all the details, but adjusting their size to fit our small bodies.
Memory. It often seems like such a fickle thing.
