On Memory

I'm taking an e-course (most of the time I'm taking an e-course...when am I not taking one? I miss school, okay? I want to be a perpetual student. According to my horoscope, the next three years I'll be yearning for more education. So...we're in for a long ride) on writing. We were prompted to journal about the word memory.

I thought I'd share what came to mind.

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Memory.

Stereotypically, I hear Barbara Streisand.

Memory…she sings.

Seriously, that is the first thing that comes to mind and then my brain flashes to an episode of Sex and the City. The four women are discussing the movie, The Way We Were, and singing “memory…” as they finish off their drinks.

I’m not sure I like that these are my first thoughts when I hear the word memory, but I know they are apropos.

Music. Movies. Characters. Make Believe.

My memories are full of them. Of one liners and snapshots. Glimpses into a much longer story that we don’t have time for.

(No wonder I studied theater and writing.)

I can’t remember much from childhood until I was about nine or ten, but they tell me that as a little one I could quote my favorite movies and songs. I can quote A League of Their Own and Pretty Woman from memory, down to which songs come in when and what expression the characters have on their faces, without much of a problem…and I haven’t seen the entirety of those movies in probably close to ten years.

I also took US History ten years ago. Don't remember much. Bad, I know. 

In pictura est puella nomine Cornelia. Latin class. Seventh grade. (Don't quote me on the spelling)

My boyfriend says I have an elephant memory because I can remember the look he gave me as he said some throw away line months ago, but, in reality, I can’t remember much of what he said yesterday.

I know I am not unique. We all have our memories. We all remember the strangest things.

I’ve often wondered why I remember what I remember. I’ve wondered so much that the last play I wrote revolves around this one line from Faulkner’s Light in August:

Memory believes before knowing remembers.

My memory houses the things I’d rather not remember, rather not know. 

My memory believes that past lives, loves, words were perfect, but I know they weren’t.

I can barely make out the beginning of The Way We Were, but the end, I can see. Not the “Your girl is lovely, Hubbell” that the Sex and the City girls were discussing, but instead I see Barbara Streisand, standing there. Robert Redford saying, “You never give up, do you?” And Barb, well, she explains that she is a good loser, a better loser than him, because she has had more practice.

My memory believes I never give up, that I too am a good loser, but I know I do, I know I’m not.

I can remember that.

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I also know that this song will be in my head for the rest of the day. So now it can be in yours. Also, love the fashion.