(my) relativity of memory

        Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us. 
                ~ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Thursday night over dinner, a friend asked, "What was your childhood like?" Just like that, out of the blue, over a pink lemonade with a bright green sprig of mint floating on top, and red lanterns reflecting in the window watching over us.

I've been asked this question before; we all have.  Without thinking, I almost uttered my usual answer: "I don't remember."  But I stopped for a bit, I thought about it again, I squeezed my eyes and tried to shake out at least one memory ~ like the final flavorful granules out of an empty salt shaker ~ but none came.  And so my answer was the same: "I don't remember."

But I wasn't talking about childhood amnesia (the common inability of adults to remember the earliest years of their childhood, typically anything before age 3 or 4).  No, my marker is age 14 ~ I told my friend I cannot remember anything, well no structured memory, before I was age 14.  I explained that our family home burned down when I was 14, on Christmas Eve; a brand new house, with brand new everything, a Christmas tree overflowing with presents, and everything inside but the clothes on our backs. The fire was so traumatic that my memories seem to begin with that event; everything before seems to have been erased.  I wrote about the fire before, briefly ~ about fleeting Fire Memories.  But Thursday night I told my friend more details about the fire ~ important moments of that particular day that I have not told anyone, no one.  In so doing, it made me remember one more important detail about what happened that day ~ something I had never thought about before; it's important, and so now I need to fit that piece into the puzzle that the fire has been for me for so many years.  So, while I was lightly liberated, in revealing something to someone that I have never uttered before to another living soul, I was also more deeply distracted by what the revelation means.  I suspect it will take another decade to figure it out.   As I sat there and thought about all this, and as my friend stared at me with wide disbelieving eyes, I realized the song playing on the restaurant's speakers was one of my favorites: El Cuarto de Tula [mp3] by Cuarteto Patria.  Really.  The song is about the firemen, with their bells and their sirens, rushing to Tula's room, which is on fire.  The utter irony danced around me as Eliades Ochoa taunted me with his melody ~~ Ay mamá, ¿qué pasó....

I don't know if changing the pieces of the puzzle, or filling it out more completely, will help me remember more about my childhood ~ but for now, I remember only 4 specific things:

(1) The smell of the cafeteria in my elementary school.  At certain moments in my adult life, I have recognized the smell, which I can't describe, and I remembered my elementary school ~ I don't remember my friends, or what the school looks like, or  even if my siblings were born yet ~ only the smell.  It is comforting, despite the darkness of the canvas surrounding it.

(2) I have a tiny heart-shaped scar on top of my left foot; right on the bony part.  When my family lived on the North Side of Houston, in a tiny apartment in the 'hood, I walked to the corner store with someone, but I can't remember whom.  We bought a huge bottle of Coca Cola ~ they were still made of glass back then.  I carried the bottle home, and just before we made it to the front yard, the bottle slipped and broke across my left foot.  I can't even remember how old I was.  I only remember the glint of the sun in the shards of Coca-Cola glass, and standing barefoot and bloody in the steamy summer heat that wafted up from the warm sidewalk.  I don't remember any other part of that day.

(3) I have a small scar, like a small brush stroke, right at the corner of my right eye.  If I were a chola, the scar is where I would have them ink the tear-drop tattoo.  One summer in Matamoros (I don't remember how old I was), a family friend or cousin and I were playing in the street.  Either we started playing rough, or he got mad at me, but from several feet away he flung a twig or a stick at me ~ hard.  I remember watching the twig propel itself towards me and at the last possible millisecond, I twitched my head to left and closed my eyes ~ the twig punctured a small spot of skin, right at the bony edge of my eye socket.  My grandparents, realizing how bad it could have been, made it that much worse for the boy who threw the stick at me.  I can't remember at all who the boy was or is.

(4) There is a small imprint of a steel beam, in the shape of a tiny leaf, on the bridge of my nose ~ right between my eyes.  I don't remember how old I was, but well before I was 14 I can assure you, somehow my family convinced me to be a cheerleader (along with my sister) for my little brother's flag football team.  I don't remember any of the game that day, or ever cheering at any of the games, or any of the other little girls on the cheerleading team.  The uniforms were maroon I think, with white turtlenecks maybe.  But at that one game, or maybe it was the first and only game for me, I remember that it was time for us to line up on either side of the goal post, to hold the banner between the posts so that the football players could burst through it, onto the field.  Just as I was about to take my place on the field, I think my mom dropped her car keys under the bleachers ~ she was sitting up pretty high and far back.  She insisted I go grab her keys ~ I was furious.  So, in my Arrona-stubborn-step, I stomped under the bleachers, found her keys in the grass, bent down hurriedly to pick them up, and whirled around ~ smack dab nose-first into a steel beam.  Maybe I never went back and cheered at any games, who knows.  It was my fault, for rushing under there and stomping around ~ I remember that ~ and I remember vividly the lightening between my eyes when the edge of the steel beam ripped into the bridge of my nose.  And the kids at school making fun of me when I went to class with a bandage or band-aid across my nose. 

I think that's it.  And these memories I remember because I have a physical reminder of each one ~ a sense of each of these moments has been ingrained in me ~ on me.  If I didn't have any physical scars, would I remember less?  Or more?  This has been a lifelong struggle, well at least since I was 14 ~~ to remember what it was like, what *I* was like, at age 7 or 8 or 9 or 10.  When I see my friends' children, and I see how fully their personalities are formed at those ages, and even younger, I wonder to myself what I may have been like ~ did I make profound philosophical statements like Jaq does?  Or did I emote as much as Dylan does, or use puns like she does?  Did I ask questions like Shelby does?  Did I read the dictionary like Diandra did when she was 7 or 8?  Did I shrug my shoulders and sigh like Rudy Jr. does?

For most people, looking at childhood photographs may jog their memory ~ a photo of you in the bathtub when you were 6 may help you remember that you wrestled with your brother in the mud that day.  A photo of you smiling broadly may help you remember it was the day your braces came off.  But for me, for my family, most of our photographs burned in the fire.  We've never even talked about the fire.  Ever.

There is a concept called the Forgetting Curve ~ it illustrates the decline of memory retention in time (the "speed of forgetting").  But related to the Forgetting Curve is the concept of strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain ~ that is, the stronger the memory, the longer we can remember it.

That's why photos, actual printed photos not just pixels on my Flickr account, mean so much to me.  And what photos represent, well it means that much more ~ a firestorm of memory more. ~ One August, a lifetime ago, I stayed up all night making a scrapbook, a memory book, for someone ~ an attempt to capture all of the good memories in one place, to make them all tangible so that they could be made worth their weight in gold.  But, the person didn't even really look through the scrapbook until days later, and the scrapbook stayed behind while the person moved on around the world; and the scrapbook was tossed into a box with other knick knacks and books, and put into storage, shortly thereafter; it's sitting alone in the dark, as memories are apt to do, I suppose.

But I want to remember.  I want it to have meant something ~ what the photo represents means something ~ you can't appreciate that until you lose your photos, or your memories, or the value someone else never really placed on them anyway.  That's why photos, and memories, are so important to me.

A few years ago, my mom mailed me what photos she did have of me as a kid ~ the handful of tiny snapshots, some still singed around the edges from the smoke damage, fit into a single ziploc sandwich bag.  Looking at most of the photos though, didn't jog my memory about the events they pictured.  There was a photo of me in a bikini (gasp) at maybe age 8 or 9, doing a headstand in the wet sand.  I have no recollection of ever going to the beach with my family, and I couldn't have been in my right mind, what with doing a headstand in a bikini.

But there was one photo, from a Halloween party at my dad's bodega, where I vaguely remember my mom buying costumes for my brothers at the last minute from a drug store ~ I think my brothers were horrified by the plastic ready-to-wear Chewbacca and Maitre'D costumes my mom made them wear.  I think my mom told my sister she could go to the Halloween party as a little girl ~ but she WAS a little girl!  They put her hair in crooked pony tails and made her wear white tights.  We were so poor back then.  So, for me, they made me a Gypsy ~ I call it foreshadowing.  I think I'm wearing one of my mom's scarves around my head and some of her clothes.

I read somewhere that D. Ewen Cameron wrote in 1963: "Intelligence may be the pride — the towering distinction of man; emotion gives colour and force to his actions; but memory is the bastion of his being.  Without memory, there is no personal identity, there is no continuity to the days of his life. Memory provides the raw material for designs both small and great. Thus, governed and enriched by memory, all the enterprises of man go forward."

So, if I have no memory, do I have no identity?  If I make it up as I go along, is my identity true to my real self?  Does your childhood shape you so much that even if you can't remember it, you are trapped by it?  If everything you once knew goes up in flames, what fragments do you sift out of the ashes?  Which do you leave behind?

I don't want to believe that forgetting is really part of the process of remembering, that my brain is trying to be ruthlessly efficient by ignoring distracting memories in order to better capture new or better memories. 

I want to believe that what I need to remember wants to be remembered, and it is trying to get my attention ~

Comments

[irasali]

mari, what a beautiful post....
we had a friend lose everything in a fire recently. i had just been to her home for a holiday gathering--it was such a beautiful old chicago graystone--the owner had even told me about all his hard work on the restoration. so the news of the fire and complete loss was heartbreaking and i was glad no one was hurt, but i know my friend has been working through those feelings and i've found it hard to offer the right words of consolation. i think i will be sharing your story with her.

[dragonflypurity]

It's true what you sat that photos are truly worth a thousand words... I'm actually doing a lot of reading about photovoice as method of community activism. I'm considering revolving my thesis project around teenage drop outs and their perception of the school system using this method. Hoepfully, it should prove interesting.

[Alma]

Reading your post triggered several childhood memories. One of which involves me dropping a Coca-Cola bottle (Coca-Cola Mexicana), it hitting the sidewalk, and slicing the front of my shin. That makes us comadres at the very least! :-)

Miss Mari thank you for sharing...again your post is very beautiful and touching. It must have been very difficult losing everything to the fire.

I listened to a program yesterday titled the Art of the American Snapshot. I couldn't help but think what a pity it is the printed snapshot is a thing of the past - with Flickr and the fact that most of us never make the time to print our digital photos. (here's the link to the show: http://tinyurl.com/2hkoxs.)

Te mando un abrazo cibernetico.

[la rebelde]

I always freeze up a little bit when people ask me open-ended questions about my childhood. It just seems like such a huge question, that I'm often daunted by the prospect of story-telling.

I like this post for so many reasons. And I wonder if there are other things, things you might not even think about consciously, that might trigger memories. Your descriptions of your scars make me wonder if the actual memories are as important as the relationships with familia or friends that form their threads. Thanks for sharing.

[cindylu]

I think I stopped really comprehending this post after I read about the fire. I just can't figure how that would affect my family or how I would feel if I couldn't remember my childhood pre-age 14.

Beautiful post. It's the good kind that gets me really thinking about things I take for granted. Gracias, Mari.

[Ruby]

"But I want to remember. ~ you can't appreciate that until you lose your photos, or your memories, or the value someone else never really placed on them anyway. That's why photos, and memories, are so important to me."

This is such a beautiful post, Mari. As you know, my family and I survived a fire too - when I was 13. I remember my papi going to work the next day at the Port of Houston ~ como si nada paso ~ well, because he needed to work now more than ever. And, mi mami, she remained brave ~ only breaking down when she came across the smoke and water-damaged photos of her ten children at different stages of their lives. Photos are extremely important to me too ~ and I know this is why. Your identity *is* true to your real self. Everything that you are ~ caring, intelligent, a fighter ~ stems from those days in the barrio, from you coming out of that fire, from you living and loving to the fullest ~ with or without photos to remind you of this...