tuckova

I've been reading about the woman (there's actually more than one person) who has hyperthymestic syndrome, and can remember everything. I am persuaded it is not a coincidence that she went by the initals AJ. Well actually I am confident it is a coincidence but it's interesting anyway. I don't think I have that, because there is plenty I don't remember, but there is so much I DO. For example arriving at the cafe to meet someone the other night, and I stood there for a minute thinking "How is this whole anonymous thing going to go?" when I already knew him. It goes without saying that he didn't remember me, but I told him anyway about where he was standing, who his date was, the music that was playing, and what we talked about, three years ago.

I wonder what AJ wants; I wonder what I want. I don't want to forget. I would like to put it away. Folded sweaters into cedar boxes that I can pull out when the weather is right but that are not crowding up the drawers of my every summery thought. I would like to have the past exist, but in the background.

And this lack of background means I have no perspective. Everything seems like it just happened. I had  assumed it was that way for everybody; that people who could not remember the stories were choosing to forget. "You can't hold me to what I said five years ago" I was told, and I thought: Why not? You can hold me to what I said. Word is bond, yo. But not if everybody forgets. And I am left with tangles of broken promises, or not broken or even abandoned: forgotten.  Promises that other people made, out loud in words or silently in deeds. I thought they were real forever but they are only real in my memory, now. And yet here I am, still holding them. The end of a jump rope after all the kids have gone back in from recess. Leaving me alone here to play with my memories.