It's March! That means that I am participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge. I am happy to co-host this event with the team at Two Writing Teachers. Everyone is welcome!
Update from yesterday: I made that call. It was good. If you're putting off a call, don't. Make that call.
Yesterday's post plunged me into a need to remember and put dates together.
"Do you remember when Danielle died?" I ask my husband. We are sitting having dinner, our first night alone since Julia is working an EMT shift and Cecily left on Monday morning for a three-month gap year program.
"Your cousin?" he asks. "Why?"
"I'm trying to put the markers together," I say. It bothers me that I can't remember when important things happened. Had I been too busy? Too sad? Too scared? Too guilty? Maybe too of all of these.
After dinner, I google my cousin, trying to find an obituary. Her death had been sudden, and her family was distraught. There'd been no service. I drove my mother to New York to meet them and support them as they emptied the apartment and packed up some of her things to keep. Why can't I remember how long ago?
I call my mother, and the two of us begin to put markers together. When one grandmother died. When my father died. When my other grandmother died. My uncle. My other cousin. My mother-in-law. My father-in-law. Danielle.
"She was 39," my mother says. "Does that help?"
With a little math, I figure out it was eight years ago. Eight years in May. My oldest daughter, Larkin, was about to turn seventeen. When my uncle came and gave her driving lessons, Danielle was still alive. Struggling. But still alive. No wonder he was okay then.
Memory is strange. There are the markers-- the big events that help me remember other events, and there are moments. There are moments that are carved into my being, and I can tell you where I was and when it was, and what the smells were around me. And some of those moments don't even really matter in the long run. Who cares that we went to the mall when the power was out and the girls were little and sat at the third book at Pizzeria Uno? Who cares that we had French fries when we got off the ferry in Block Island eighteen years ago? I can still picture the salt on those fries.
But I can't remember driving to New York when Danielle died and it was only eight years ago?
Interesting that my word for 2021 is moment. I have to think about this.
Moments, markers, and memories.
My husband remembers these things so much better than I do. I wonder if all the other things in my mind have overcrowded the capacity much like the photos on my phone.
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting to me what we remember and what we are able to remember. Whole years of life apparently gone, and yet the salt on the fries somehow lingers.
ReplyDeleteMemories,markers, and moments...yes there are. Well stated. The way you shared this here was so true. I wonder if it's a universal human experience, at least in this age. Now you've got me thinking about each in my own life. - Tim Wheeler
ReplyDeleteCrying. I think about these things all the time. Jon tells me nobody thinks as much as I do about memory, markers and moments - but I do. I have you to thank for finding the trifecta of words that forever etch the way I move about in the world. I just called myself nostalgic. But it's precisely this. The series of clips that circle in my head from across disparate years and slices - the ones that made an indelible mark on my mind- WHY? What remains? Biggest hugs. You made me teary and it's only 5am!! XX
ReplyDeleteI'm big on holding onto the moments and the markers. When I forget one, like you, I dig and dig until I figure it out.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting what the mind remembers. Some of the big details escape us while some of the little things, like the salt on the French fries, stay with us. Why is that?
I think we hold so many markers, moments and memories for so many it is difficult to hold them for ourselves. I find my markers are so interconnected that I need to find them, feel them, and experience them through the intersection of my life. The ones without emotion are easier - almost like a fact to remember. When it is a marker, a memory or a moment - there is so much more to process and the when might not be the most important part. Sending hugs for now and the moments that lie ahead.
ReplyDeleteIt is fascinating how our brain seems to decide on memories and the senses that accompany them. Sending love to you.
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