Remembering and Forgetting in Later Life:
The Gift and Curse of Mnemosyne and Lethe
Section IV – Personal Perspectives (b) –
We would be nothing without the past generations, nothing without their history and our own, but memory is accurate only if it gives meaning to present existence.
—Sylviane Agacinski, Time Passing: Modernity and Nostalgia
The things we remember no longer exist. We compose ourselves out of the traces those things have left in us—figments snagged in the net we cast over the tumult of our lives as they ineluctably and forever escape us.
—Derek Sayer, Going Down for Air: A Memoir in Search of a Subject
In Section IV(a) of this blog series (previously), I mentioned the notion of adults of a certain age as being further along and closer to the ocean than to the headwaters of life. Okay, at this point, we need to highlight Bertrand Russell and his work, Portraits from Memory, which I think as highly appropriate given his interest in memory, time, the life course and aging. And it also seemed to run parallel to Thomas Cole’s paintings of the Voyage of Life in perfect symmetry.
The selected passage of Russell’s was taken from a piece titled, How to Grow Old –
An individual’s existence should be like a river – small at first, narrowly contained within its bounds, and seeking passionately past boulders and even waterfalls. Gradually, the river grows, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without visible break they become merged in the sea and painlessly lose their individual being.
Through the passages of time. We are created – molded – transformed. We are the product of our times and with that, we carry the memories – the good and the bad, the horrific and sublime, the mundane and the transcendental. We have our individual timeline and the historical timeline – and the remembrance of both. The question is, at least for aging baby boomers, what will be important to remember? And conversely – to forget? Maybe we are supposed to just move on. What I mean is this: I still make fun of my father for hanging on to his music and his remembrance of the “good ol’ days.” And now it is “instant karma.” I guess it’s my turn to get the message of “time to move on.” But not so fast…not yet.
Question: as we get older, what exactly will we give back as “the story of our time” to other generations? Do we even have a story to pass on? One that has some degree of civility and meaning to this life? Do we have a sense of obligation to build again? Hell, I’m not even sure if we, the baby boomers, care or not. Maybe memories are like baggage. Maybe a lot of people just can’t wait to unload it. But then again all those years, all those experiences, what we have done in the past. Does it have an impact on the future and with the time that we have, the time we have left? There’s got to be something of worth, some sort of wisdom to impart. Are there any threads worth handing over? To teach? Are there threads that connect the past to whatever the future may hold? What about us?
What about me? Maybe I should get off my ass and try to find out for sure. Think of the years. 1955 – and now it’s almost 2009. What has happened? Shitttttttt….Where did that go? Where in the hell to start? And that’s only – well – just over fifty-three years. What about when you have eighty behind you? Or ninety? Or over a hundred? Can all that simply be forgotten? Can it? Where do those memories go? Into tombstones at the gravesite? Into monuments? Into a dairy? A book? A photo album? Music? Art? Into your children? Where? I’m just one out of millions before me – millions upon millions – and then some. All of that – And to where? – To what end?
One clue for me was found in a book that I highly recommend to you – and it is a work of fiction:
Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon. In the last fourteen pages of this book, I had an ephiphany of sorts on what I was to do. In the last twelve pages of the book and beginning on page 427, the story had Cory Mackenson returning to the town of Zephyr in the year 1991. He had since married and he now had a son and Cory reflected on the passage of time since 1964,
…We’ve lived through Vietnam – if we’ve been fortunate –and the era of Flower Power, Watergate, and the fall of Nixon, the Ayatollah, Ronnie and Nancy, the cracking of the Wall and the beginning of the end of the Communist Russia. We are truly living in a time of whirlwinds and comets. And like rivers that flow to the sea, time must flow into the future. It boggles the mind to think what might be ahead. But, as the Lady once said, you can’t know where you’re going until you figure out where you’ve been.
Now how’s that for summing up generational life course of a baby boomer? And then look what McCammon did in the Acknowledgments part of his book at the end. It’s a Who’s Who of cross-cutting influences on boomers like me, most I recognize, some I don’t, but it’s pretty cool that that he listed them all out, like an inventory of life experiences, an old cigar box full of life’s treasures hidden away.
Wow, I can even see me riding my Schwinn Sting Ray bike with the high-rise handle bar and the banana seat. And then look how McCammon credits Rod Sterling and Ray Bradbury for his writing and imagination. I wonder if all, if not most, male boomers could get into the story like I did with this book? The memories, the experiences. And even though McCammon turned his into fiction, it was still pretty close to what could happen back then. Besides the past has it’s own special magic, at least in some parts, but as you get older….Yeah, I know something happened…
Wow, what happened? That was then…and this is now – and seems like a bag of hurt. I think it’s time to cue the song: You could pick Bittersweet Symphony - but I choose - Comfortably Numb (the version by Van Morrison with Roger Waters works best, but recall Pink Floyd) – I am receding – the dream is gone – a sojourn into gray. A gray “color” like the image of the brain on the Powerpoint slides I was looking at last week (see earlier blog posting) and the next slide had us viewing the landscape of the convoluted folds of the brain, then a cross section, and I see the dark-colored layer of the cortex and I hear the phrase “gray matter” and immediately I think about my sojourn into gray.
It captures the story of my life so far. Well, as far as I can tell.
Before this speck of life
passes on and out—
how our lives are measured,
graded, counted, recorded
as monthly bank statements.
And while that exactness
never ceases, I desire more
the inverse with grayness.
I seek the range,
not the median.
The quickening down count,
I grow more intimate
with chaos of years flashing faster,
an irregular star trapped in skin.
Why can’t aging be of Tao,
and not Newton?
As a back eddy removes itself,
but still connected to a gravity
fed river raging, to the side
for an instant, slowing,
circular,
not linear.
A time to reflect for a moment again:
Treasures of existence . . . brush
of your lips, loving, beauty in the child’s
laugh, comfort of the friend, the
calming shore breeze at dawn, a
sigh at the wonder of being in-place . . .
Before re-entering destiny,
following the pull toward oblivion.
And whereas Proust wrote an involuntary sensory and mental reaction brought on by tea and Madeleine cake, I have begun to inventory my own triggers – some of which I have tried to resurface even when they had long since disappeared and would not be capable of reproducing again:
English Leather cologne: Adolescence – trying out the dating scene – Mr. Cool – trying to be an adult but still awkward – probably splashed too much on me –also reminds me of Brut cologne – throwing that on me after PE class – probably a step above Hai Karate – which then reminds me of Billy Joel’s song –“Keeping the Faith” – My old man’s Trojans and his Old Spice after shave -
Wisteria: light blues, white, yellow – reminds me of grandmothers – Nan’s backyard – summer – bees – heaviness in the air – feminine – intoxicating –overpowering – hanging like grapes on the trellis – sometimes too sweet – like the perfume that the old ladies used to wear at church –
Suntan Lotion: summer – bikinis – lemonade – ice tea – skateboard – surfing – the ocean – probably will have to write some poetry on this one – skim board – sensual – long days – time was different – time was like drifting -
Bubble-gum: baseball games – summer – bubble-blowing contests – sno-cones – freedom – happiness – carefree -
Smell of fresh cut lumber: working with Pop – watching him build everything and anything – magic – sawdust – power saw – making signs for homes in North Carolina – hope – promise – skills to have –
Baseball glove: athleticism – turning a double play – hitting that triple – stealing bases – me writing St. Louis Cardinals names on my glove – Bob Gibson and Lou Brock – confidence – limber – playing ball was life –
WD-40: working on fixing things around the house – taking the whole day to replace the old wood bed out of a pickup truck – loosening the bolts that were rusted – Why? – to go duck hunting –the next day – the smell of gunpowder – and freezing my ass off in the duck blind – strong black coffee – and trying to make calls like a mallard hen – an outboard motor that won’t start – a long way to paddle back in – raining all the way -
Opening my old tackle box: knowing – knowing where the fish are – perfect cast – the smell of plastic worms – rusted hooks – a jar of old salmon eggs – a jar of old pork rinds – I see the top water bait – the one with propellers on the front and back – I think of Lisa – and then a song that used to piss me off – “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago –
Mimeograph fluid: school handouts – blue ink – teaching classes – still damp from being run just recently from the machine – in a hurry – strange days at Arcadia High School – seems like another lifetime ago –
Hawaiian Punch: – just the sight of it – being stupid – getting sick – too much alcohol mixed with it – throwing up all night long – sickly purple-red – some things you just want to forget –
Blue votive candle: who would imagine? – less than a dollar – from Pier One imports – I smell it – and it is the skin of her – fresh – breezy – instantaneous delight – to fall asleep -
Saffron: multi-sensuous – the rich grassy or hay like fragrance – natural and exotic – Minoan rituals – Theseus anointed with spices - Siddhartha – meditative – the color of sunset in late April -
Okay – your turn….
Thanks, Scott D. Wright
Marcus Aurelius