Some Musings on Memory
... and the hazards of nostalgia
I am a sucker for ‘nostalgia’. That much is very clear. When I indulge in it, I almost get a physical sense of pleasure, a psychic tingle, it’s hard to describe. But whatever it does in me, I am drawn to it. When I talk about nostalgia, mind you, I am not speaking of daydreaming and solitary reminiscences. It is not solitary and reflective, but an active process necessitating the involvement of at least one other person.
Although I basically find it fun, nonetheless, there are uncertainties and consequences. I am apt to be surprised, even a little disappointed. Let me tell you what I mean.
My cousin Mike is 2 weeks older than me. We grew up together in Dallas and Mike and I were very close. He was my best friend and confidant throughout high school, but afterwards, we largely went our separate ways. After decades without contact, we crossed paths again and got in touch 5 years ago. In an email, I described a vivid high school event which surely, I thought, he would have no trouble recalling.
My memories of you are always ‘pinned’ by one in particular. We were riding in your parent’s green Plymouth. It was probably 1957 or 58 as Plymouth had just come out with a push-button transmission. One night, we were cruising down Preston Road and you must have triggered some road rage in some rednecks by shooting them “the shaft” at the light. Soon they were chasing us with their car all over, honking and cursing. You suddenly turned into a large construction site and we were driving across a muddy field crisscrossed with caterpillar tracks. I was sitting in the bench front seat (before seatbelts), facing you, bouncing around, gripping the seat back and braced against the dashboard, trying not to shit my pants. You were alternately punching the “D” [drive] button and the “1” [low] button, trying to navigate across the muddy ruts. But what I most remember (in the middle of all this) is you stripping off your leather belt and wrapping it around your forearm. “In case they have a knife”, you explained. All I really vividly recall is thinking, “How in hell did he learn that trick!”
The outcome was that we reached another street while they remained in the construction site. We made a clean getaway and were out of sight before they reached the road.
Mike thought he recalled it, but it was obvious he hadn’t. He assumed I was talking about another memory he had, but actually it had nothing to do with my own. His recollection nonetheless was representative of his ironic sense of humor, which I always savored. He thought I was talking about a night when two high school bullies had managed to stop him on Northhaven Road. One knocked him to the ground. “I opted to stay there and listen to his tirade rather than get up and have him knock me down again. I remember someone was with me, but that's all. I think I blanked that memory from my mind and stored it along with some other unsavory characters. They will pop up if they figure I am in too good a mood.”
That seems to be everyone’s conception regarding traumatic memories — either we suppress them entirely, producing an amnesia, or we are unable to forget them, producing PTSD. I think that’s true in a general sense but the science behind this observation has never explained why the same event in different people gives differing outcomes: in some, amnesia; in others, no particular outcome, leading to a simple unremarkable recall; in a few others, PTSD. It’s a mystery surrounded by innumerable theories, some having the feel of truth, but none proven in my estimation. Here was an event that Mike and I lived through simultaneously — an event almost engraved in my head while leaving in him, no trace. As I said, that recognition left me surprised and somewhat disappointed.
These walks down memory lane are not without its risks. There is always the possibility of a “bad trip”, usually taking the form of a bruised ego. I will tell you what I mean.
Recently, I got back into contact with my first real girlfriend in life, Ida Rose. I had never forgotten her. As the years passed, and the Internet evolved, and as I became more proficient with its use, finally, after 55 years I found her email address. I had always been shy around girls. I desired them — intensely, tremendously. But to the same degree, girls raised in me an opposing emotion, fear! — of themselves and their power of rejection.
I met Ida Rose during my first month at the University of Texas in Austin in 1960. Her sorority was giving an afternoon “social”, designed to introduce their freshman pledges to our fraternity pledge class. A few days before, I was handed her name as my (blind) ’date’. I still do not know what system was used to match us up. There were two main possibilities: on the one hand, our pledge ‘masters’ actually employed some degree of knowledge and intuition, or on the other, chance. I would guess it was chance. I assume it was the roll of the dice that put us together.
I am certain that I had to steel myself to (cold) call her, which was the psychic equivalent of me being asked by my English teacher to stand up and deliver to the class a 60 second summary of Macbeth, which I never read. Nonetheless, I called to introduce myself and give her some clue as to how she might identify me. I told her I would be wearing a light tan summer suit. She said I would probably be easy to identify, that I would stand out, like “a rabbit”. For some unaccountable reason, that charmed me and put me at ease. (Only now, 60 years later, do I grasp the possibility that I may have always misunderstood her rabbit comment. Perhaps she herself misunderstood as well. I had always assumed that she would be on the lookout for this visual image of a white rabbit. But maybe she had picked up on my timidity, even if unconsciously. Perhaps I was charmed and put at ease simply because I sensed in her comment an acceptance.)
I think my next memory gives weight to that theory. Although Ida Rose and I seemed to hit it off at our first meeting, it was not enough to provide me the nerve needed to ask her out for a first ‘real’ date.
As freshmen, we all went to the library at night to study. I would walk in, see her there, at a table across the room. If we happened to make eye contact, I would lift an eyebrow in recognition. (I probably didn’t even smile.) One night she called me out on it and demanded to know why I didn’t say ‘Hello’. That was enough to pull me out of my painful shyness. We clicked and became a couple, on and off, for two years, until she met her future husband in the summer, transferred to the University of Houston and got married.
Leaving aside the intricacies of our early relationship, it is important to know that for the past few months, Ida Rose and I have been engaged in a pleasant Internet email exchange: two geriatric pen pals, trying to catch up after 60 years — driven solely, I am sure, by curiosity rather than passion. It seems we both enjoy this nostalgic trip and I sense, that like our first match-up that afternoon at the sorority, we are hitting it off. We are happy and relish the pleasure we get when our shared memories match. “It wasn’t real fur, just mouton, but you actually remember my initials sewn into the lining! How strange!”
After the usual back and forth, Ida Rose and I find ourselves logged in to one another’s account after an interval of a half century. These accounts had lain dormant with passwords forgotten. Now we are in the process of updating these accounts, re-populating and editing the fields on the screen that identify us as to who we are and where we come from. I thought she had one younger sister, it turns out she had two. She did not remember if I had siblings. In response I wrote:
I’m sure you met my brother Don and his new wife Gloria, at the Tau Delt formal, in the spring of our sophomore year. He brought my parents to Austin and they all came to the dance. (I was always my friend Allen’s willing partner in any of his zany schemes. At his insistence, we rented 2 tux coats for the dance, wearing one for effect — a silver and black, richly embroidered, paisley brocade more appropriate to a rising young singing star — and then changing into the plain black ones after our dramatic entrance. If you have no recollection, then I want to go back and try to get my money refunded!)
I thought I was being clever with my refund remark. Of course, she would remember. But she wrote back, “Sorry but no recollection about the dance, the outfits or your parents. Where was I? Are you sure I was there?”
Wow. Was I set back on my heels! I was certain she was my date that night. I could look back and see us sitting at the table with my brother Don, his wife, and my parents. Other couples were stopping by our table. I could see all of us laughing and chatting together. Even more memorable for me, this was the only time we rented a motel and slept together. Don’t get the wrong idea. This was 1962. She had to be back in her dorm by 1 AM to beat curfew. Everyone worked around that restriction by signing out ahead of time and renting rooms in a motel. We had a reservation to spend the night at a Ramada Inn near the I-35 Interstate. And we did — in the same bed, chastely — (it was 1962 and we were not ahead of our time). That was the only occasion when we spent the night together. How could she forget? Reading her email, I could not but feel deflated. “Sorry but no recollection… Where was I? Are you sure I was there?” Dial 911 and call the Ego EMS.
I am sure she was there. I would testify under oath that she was there. But the science of memory informs me that vivid ‘certain’ memories are just as likely to be ‘false’ as vague uncertain ones. Probably only a tiny part of 1% of our experience for a given year is encoded in our brains as memories and schlepped forward into later years. Maybe some memories are retained for their significance, but likely others are retained haphazardly, even randomly. Ida Rose and I both remember her mouton coat with her initials. But she has no recollection of that fraternity formal dance, choreographed and costumed by my friends and family. No doubt, as time goes on, we will discover other memory mis-matches. Episodes and events that seemed crucial to her, that we both participated in, will leave no imprint in my mind. All of us — Mike, Ida Rose and I — are the same exact age, and perhaps our advanced age is a factor, but I doubt it.
So despite all these risks and drawbacks, I still like to indulge in my love of nostalgia. But I have learned to do it with caution and have lowered my expectations. I have learned most importantly that nostalgia always has to be exercised with humility. We all assume we are unique judges of experience. We all assume what has impact on us has impact on others. But it is wrong and an illusion. It is based on our egotistical self-involvement, which is our endowment by life itself. Our tierra, our native land, is first of all ourselves. We live in ourselves, and therefore know ourselves best, or at least, should. If we end up failing to know our limits, our borders, then we end up creating around us a bubble of self-regard and importance that is fragile, and easily punctured. Ah, nostalgia, handle with care.