memories

[spacefem]

I'm reading "The Art of the Memoir" by Mary Karr. I love reading memoirs, fantasize about writing one someday, but her book talks a lot about memory and its pitfalls. You have to have a good memory, I'm not sure I do! I tend to sugar-coat things, I'm an over-optimist. My brother-in-law remembers SO much from his young childhood. I should tell him about this book. He was an english major anyway, shouldn't he get on this memoir thing?

Clearest as day example: we had an ice storm last month and everybody is hurting themselves. Be careful, friends! My sister destroyed an ankle on ice a few years ago, after multiple surgeries it's almost the same? At my husband's birthday party this year one of our friends thought the ground was safe, but stepped on a metal grate with a totally different coefficient of friction and went down, hurting an arm, a leg, a lot of spots I'm sure, he got up but the look on his face was one of deep trauma.

I was talking to my 14yo about this and asked her, "Did I fall on ice last year? I can't remember. I fell hard. Remember that giant bruise I had on my backside? Was that from ice? All I remember is IMPACT, and then the inability to sit down straight, for weeks! It was kind of a funny story to coworkers and I was always showing you guys my butt because it looked awful!"

She thought for a minute and said "No you got that bruise on the float trip. It wasn't even winter. We hit that tree."

hell, she's right! We were on the river on a raft. I was either really relaxed or dozing off. Totally sober. The weather was lovely, the water out near the Merrimac in Missouri is shallow with just a few fast spots over branches.

Well, one of those fast spots snuck up on us and we slammed into a fallen log and I was flung out the side of the raft and felt myself hit a hard surface HARD. fallen logs must have been just at the surface. I scrambled off to the side but I knew I'd be feeling that one and felt lucky I hadn't fallen in any kind of weirder way. That bruise grew to like 4". I couldn't even wear my comfiest shorts, they weren't long enough to cover it.

how my kid remembered it, when it wasn't even her injury, is a mystery to me. their brains are all faster? or her filing system in that moment was just cleaner? it was just last summer.

Comments

[lepid0ptera]

Same. I was at the Natural History Museum with my mother and she started telling some guy about some experiments I did for my Ph.D a decade ago... I had completely memory holed those experiments. She wasn't even a witness to them! She had heard about it second hand.

And she's older! So very messy file system, and she definitely misremembers stuff herself all the time. I guess it was more interesting to her than to me.

[lenine]

different coefficient of friction

Thank you, Science Person, for this phrase! I'm going to use it when describing the state of the roads.

I have an amazing memory. I can see pictures in my head of things from years ago. Even if I've forgotten my grocery list at the store I can see it in my head. It's not all great. It means I remember every cruel thing anyone has said to me. When I remember it I feel like it's fresh.

[brittdreams]

If you want a different perspective on memoir amidst not being sure about everything, I highly recommend Whoopi Goldberg's Bits and Pieces.

[spacefem]

That sounds interesting, I’ll add it to my list!

[brittdreams]

I really enjoyed it! Also, Whoopi recorded the audiobook version and it's a great listen.

[adafrog]

Memory is weird.

[kazzy_cee]

I was bucked off a horse once and landed on a stone in the ground. I ended up with a leg that had a bruise from my hip to my ankle and it took a long time for the spot that hit the stone to regain the feeling as the nerves were damaged!

[spacefem]

that's terrifying! I only fell a few feet and it was memorable... you were multiples higher than me I'm glad you didn't hit your head or anything.