THE WAY WE WERE

memories…

…light the corners of my mind…

A  few weeks ago, reunion fever spread amongst my classmates. I’m talking about my high school class, my youth-movement group, and my old scout troop. I don’t recall large get-togethers in previous decades. All at once, there was a “come-now-or-miss-this-once-in-a-lifetime-event” sentiment.

I grew up half a world away, and managing a trip was not to be. But this electronic and global age has a solution for this. Internet video-chat, sharing photos, and instant communication anytime/anywhere, bridge time-zone differences that turn night into day. Unlike me, some made the actual voyage back to Jerusalem, and the parties went on throughout the month of June.

But for all the merriment, there was a troubling aspect: familiar names I couldn’t quite place, and aged-faces that drew a blank. I am certain my name and face was a blank for some.

I started wondering about the corners of my mind.

Then I got a few urgent (if embarrassed) emails from old friends I have kept in touch with. They needed my help to remember others. I actually remembered at least as much as they had, maybe more.  

It wasn’t early dementia setting in, it was the ephemeral aspect of memory, that store-if-you-need-it-for-later, and then lose-it-if-you-didn’t-use-it.

Seeing images of the faces from our youth, all was restored. I just had to join names to the young faces, and then attach them to the faces of today.

This got me thinking about how I write characters and their memories. In fiction, people remember a whole lot. It’s a device necessary to convey back-story or make sense of a plot. But I now see how unrealistic it is.

What I once considered to be fantasy, The Bourne Identity, where a character with a partially-erased and fractured memory is globe-trotting in search of who he is, turns out to be closer to reality than the standard realistic stories I thought I was writing.

Misty water color memories of the way we were
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind…