the one(s) that get away
on forgetting and remembering (with a little writing prompt)
It happened again last night. As I was lying in some sort of half sleep, a sequence of poetry lines came to me, a sequence I was enamored with and surely would remember. Today, I remember that lines were there, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what they are. Or even what they were about. I do remember they built on one another, like an if/then sequence. That is all I remember.
You might ask, Why don’t you keep a bedside journal in which to jot these thoughts? (I’ve tried this before - after weeks of not using it, I put it away to clear space and that’s usually when something comes up. Go figure.) Why don’t you just get up and go write them down wherever you keep your things? (Dear reader, when you are 62 years old and already have trouble falling asleep, you will not consider this an option, either.) Why don’t you put them in the notes app on your phone? ( I have a good answer for this last one - I refuse to keep my phone in my bedroom.)
In the past, I have remembered at least the gist of what I wanted to remember the next morning by repeating it over and over in my mind, anchoring it there somehow. But lines aren’t the only things I forget these days. I walk into a room and forget what I went in there to do. I ask for confirmation/clarification before running errands lest I forget some promised task. I probably send my friends too many texts or emails for the same reason. (Sorry, friends. Thank you for not blocking me.)
But why, oh why, then do I remember the most INCONSEQUENTIAL things? Here are just a few bizarre things permanently etched in my brain that I cannot shake:
The lyrics to the truly horrible 70s song “The Night Chicago Died” by Paper Lace. Five decades later, I recall the whole awful thing, right down the inaccurate spoken section at the beginning which refers to the “east side of Chicago”— which is, in fact, Lake Michigan. (Lots of horrible song lyrics are stuck in there, mostly from that same period of 1970-1975. “Seasons in the Sun.” “Billy Don’t Be a Hero.” “Brandy.” Don’t let anyone tell you that 70s pop radio was any good…) You can suffer through it here, if you dare…
The way Keegan-Michael Key used to say “Whole. Notha. Level.” as Eugene Struthers on MAD-TV. I cannot hear or say that phrase without thinking of his inflection.
How to count to ten in German. (My grandpa taught me when I was small, but I have never learned any other parts of the language.)
How to spell “hell” and “boobs” on a calculator. (I’m very mature…)
How to hem a pair of pants or skirt with masking tape. (Worked women’s retail through college and it was a fashion show trick.)
TWO different nearly-foolproof cures for hiccups. (Drinking from the back rim of a cup OR drinking as much water as you can as fast as you can then plugging your ears and burping. My middle school students used to love that one…)
You get the idea.
Memory is a jerk sometimes. It keeps insignificant things (like the above-mentioned list). It locks in moments I’d rather NOT remember, like the last nights with my mother and my father, with exacting clarity.
Yet it conveniently discards moments I wish I could recall better but have disappeared into the ether. Like the train song I made up and used to sing to my son at bedtime. Or those elusive lines that came to me in a near-sleep state that I will most likely never happen upon again.
Perhaps that is why I write in the first place. To observe and report. To keep the world and my memory of it intact.
Prompts:
Make a list of things you remember that are unnecessary.
Option 1: Flip the script and write about them as if they have some importance.
Option 2: Take one of the items from your list and write a narrative (real or imagined) that uses it as a focal point.