Persistence of Memory

This is my friend Greg. For a day and a half last week I couldn't think of his name.

This past weekend my dad and I were in the Verizon store. When we walked in I noticed a familiar woman and her mother at the counter. In less than a second it came to me. Sarah DeWitt. Carlson Elementary. I hadn't seen or spoken to her in twenty years.

Some things I've done or experienced I'd like to forget but can't. Some things I'd like to remember but have forgotten. Details, sights, sounds, smells, names. It's strange what we can recall and what we can't. It seems like the more terrible or trivial something was the easier it is to recall.

I don't remember anything about my first time on stage as councilmen #4 in the Pied Piper. I vividly remember pushing Marisol Ramirez off my desk and her slapping me across the face.

I don't remember the first time I told my high school girlfriend Jessy Melville that I loved her or what her response was. I vividly remember her not talking to me for a week and almost breaking up with me when I smoked pot for the first time.

I don't remember when my college roommate Bob Boehle gave me his guitar and taught me to play. I vividly remember the campus police cuffing us and being traipsed out of our dormitory into the back of a squad car.

Memory can be unforgiving and at times one sided. We are a collection of all the things that have happened to us and things we've done regardless if we remember them or not. Ultimately the only important moment is now. The moment I'm writing this and soon the moment you'll be reading this. I would like to remember some past pleasures with a little more clarity but regardless of my ability to call them up they are a part of me.

Still though. I'd rather remember Greg than Sarah DeWitt.