remembering

One of the aspects of my humanity I take most for granted is my ability to remember. What a marvel it is that my 5'11'' 165 lb frame manages to find storage space for my life's chronicles: moment of birth till the constant succession of "nows" that are steadily elapsing. And beyond, if I think about it more deeply.

Some of these records I will never be able to visit: the ones the precede the formation of my words and ideas, like my birth and my first few years of life. But they are there, I am told, making frequent imperceptible contributions to the way I think and behave, the personality I develop.

They exist alongside the records that I do have access to, the ones that warp and blur as they are transmuted through Time's altering medium, continuing to exist only at the cost of their integrity and completeness. The ones that take me by surprise--evoked by some external stimulus: a slant of light, a certain fragrance, a familiar name uttered in a crowd. Also, the ones that are deliberately trotted out in the context of friendship or family: the inside joke, the wistful anecdote, the enthusiastic "I remember when...!"

I have memories that predate my own existence, memories that have been transmitted to me by parents and loved ones and teachers. These include stories about my ancestry, or about world events dating back to Adam and Eve. I carry around with me a memory of the time poor King Harold got an arrow in the eye at the Battle of Hastings, and a memory of the time my Opa jumped ship and became an illegal alien on American soil.

As I go about my daily routines, I am constantly sifting through these memories, being entertained by them, dredging them up to help me cope with all brands of situations, reliving the wafts of emotion that they diffuse into my inner atmosphere. It's miraculous. These fragile, surreal memories are a part of my composition and function as much as veins and arteries, bones and organs--an idea that disturbs me. I take measures to protect them, embalming them in joural entries and blogposts, conveying them to friends and family members for safekeeping. Yet all the while, I am aware that these measures also inevitably distort and weaken them.

Of course, the poverty of my own articulation strikes me when I am reminded (ha!) of these words by Marilynne Robinson in Gilead: "This life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing, I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve."

Also, this quote from Harriet Doerr's Stones For Ibarra. "Memories are like corks left out of bottles. They swell. They no longer fit."

And yet again, I am brought back to considering the fragility and finity of my human existence. Also, its resilience, its persistence. Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.