Barnes and Noble, Georgetown, DC.

I think something needs to be said about memory. I should say, as it relates to the present, or perhaps to writing.

It’s been remarked upon that I have a rather keen skill for remembering other people’s stories. Especially in relationships—I come off as a wonderful listener. Names I’m not always great with, nor can I always pin down the where and whens of things, but the narrative thrust of other people’s lives… I can be reliably counted on to maintain these things. As for my own life… I have a really hard time with this. Things come back blurry, like abandoned polaroid pictures or those water damaged books at the bottom of the boxes at every garage sale. As a writer this can be difficult… the notion that I have this whirlwind of other people’s stories in my mind and a severe absence of my own makes it difficult to truly fathom what I have to say… or even remember what inspire me to speak in the first place.

My first actual memory from my childhood (I say actual to separate it from memories that have been implanted in me through over-told stories and family photo albums) was from when I was maybe four years old. I don’t know exactly… but I remember, and I don’t know if this is strange or not, that I knew then that this would be my first memory. I was in a park in Skokie, IL with my Grandfather. There was someone else there, maybe another young boy, a cousin perhaps, and we were going to play on the swings. This was the day when I learned how to use the swings by myself. This was a pretty big deal for a kid… one of those milestones people talk about, I guess… but then things get blurry again.

I hear people tell stories of their first memories, and they always seem much more vivid, much more interesting… but perhaps that’s grass being greener and not the truth.

To be fair, I’ve always sort of thought my own truth wasn’t enough for my life. I told plenty a tall tale (to put it nicely) in my life, especially through grade school. At some point, I was saying that the Power Rangers were my neighbors and that my uncle was Michael Jordan (not understanding the subtler points of genetics and race, I guess). I grew up with hand-me-down clothes and hand-me-down toys, so it’s not surprising that I would embrace the notion of a hand-me-down life.

I think the fact is that the life I’ve lived and the life I’ve told are too deeply entwined to be easily untangled. Finding memories of my own feels more like panning for gold than sculpting from marble. Yet, I know that I want to find them. I want to remember as much as I can of my past, because without my past, without understanding where I came from, it will be too overwhelming to understand how I came to be the person I am today, and, I think, without knowing one’s own composition, it’s devastatingly difficult to imagine vivid and complete characters for a fictional world.

I wonder if I’m alone in this… I think that’s the biggest question of all, the reason why people surround themselves with other people, why we read and listen to stories, to find, hopefully, that we’re not alone in what we feel, how we think, the way we see this vast world of ours.

So, I guess I’m learning. Like my four-year-old self on the swings with my grandfather at my back, I’m putting my legs in front of me and kicking at the wind, hoping beyond hope that, someday soon, the proverbial gears will spring to life and from them, a new world will emerge.

That’s All For Now.

-e.-