I Can’t Remember Anything
Sometimes I feel like Ava on Grey’s Anatomy, the disfigured woman who became beautiful through plastic surgery, fell in love with Alex and then went nuts. She had amnesia, and so do I. I don’t mean that I can’t remember where I left my glasses (although that’s also a problem). No, I have somehow managed to forget huge chunks of my past. My adorable daughter asked me once about my childhood birthday parties. (She and her brother had some pretty darn memorable ones, if I do say so.) I drew an absolute blank. The only one I remember was when the amazing Mary rented the town movie theater for a matinee, and I had a Barbie cake (an actual doll stuck inside a cake dress; it was cool). What did I do on Halloween over the years? I don’t have a clue. A high school friend recently recalled an incident with an English teacher we supposedly loved. Who?! A college friend showed off a photo of me on a camping trip at the beach. How did I get into that picture? I hate camping!
My first boss from more than 30 years ago has a photographic memory, and he amuses himself by recalling random things I said and did when I first got to New York, green as a gourd and splendidly outfitted in mid-70s polyester suits. How does his brain hold on to all that information?
Oddly enough, I tend to remember objects more than people or incidents, which is one reason I love having furniture from my childhood home in my apartment and at our beach house. I recall a trio of groovy octagonal tables in my cousins’ den that fit together like a puzzle. I wish I had those! In junior high, the door of my closet was plastered with pictures of the stars of Mission: Impossible. I can’t remember the plot of a book I read last month, but I remember Martin Landau on my closet.
Maybe the holes in my memory are related to the fact that I am not very nostalgic. For the most part, my past doesn’t interest me (see previous post about throwing it all in a trunk and sitting on the lid), but that may change now that I have this blog to play in. Who knows what I will remember next?
Tags: Grey's Anatomy, memory, Mission: Impossible