memory in real life, memory in work

I wonder a lot about my memory. Two weeks ago I was invited to a wedding of someone I’ve known for a long time. When I mean a long time, I mean since we were eight years old. The friendship has waxed and waned over the years and I guess it’s waxing right now, hence the invitation. So, obviously, I have to think of a present, and I’m sitting around thinking about some of the stuff we did in high school, like stupid poems we wrote to each other and thinking maybe I could recreate some of those, at least for the card, because that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Then I realise that no, it wouldn’t be nice, because nobody remembers all the random bits and pieces I do.

I met someone recently. Technically, I re-met someone. We went to high school together and were in a few classes and in a few clubs together and she has no memory of me at all. Not one, while I remember her. I remember entire conversations we had together. But none of this clearly made its way into her long-term memory.

I’ve always been at the periphery of people’s lives. I get that. My personality is less of a personality than a flat-line of quiet and suspicion. Observation. I observe, which helps me as a writer. The memory helps too, remembering scenes and places and how people stood or looked or smiled in certain instances. So I can take my exact memory and put it to good use. Still, it sometimes hurts to be forgotten, even if I can use the forgotten bits in my writing.

And because I teased you all with the possibility of high school poetry, here is some of a poem that I wrote in high school for my wedding-friend. It is a nonsense poem, like most of the poems we wrote at the time. I can’t remember a lot of it (so much for my exact memory), only bits and pieces. I think the poem was about forty lines long, and I only have twelve lines that have stuck with me. The ending stanza, which I do remember, also has to do with remembering things for a long time, so I guess it’s apt for this post about memory. So I leave what I can recall here for you to peruse: