I was reminded this week of the flaws and fractures of memory, as well as its glory.
In the first instance, I was contacted by a client I had done some work for over a month ago, who was requesting a timeline as to when I would complete that work. Though there is an email trail, and an incomplete document, I have no memory of leaving that job unfinished. Indeed, in reviewing that document, it is evident from what I have done that I was not in my right mind at the time – the work is shoddy at best.
While I had been aware that I had lost literal weeks to sickness, I simply wasn’t aware I had left certain tasks undone, or simply not started at all. In going back through my emails – 5 months’ worth – there are other clients, other administrative tasks simply left by the wayside, that I have no clear memory of. This is scary, both because of the time lost and because it identifies just how much I rely on memory elsewise.
Yesterday, for instance, I met the partner of a friend for the second time. In doing so, I knew the instance when we first met, with details as to the time of evening, location to within metres, how many minutes we were in each other’s presence, and my general mood and disposition at the time. This kind of details rests with me for every friend, every person I meet to speak to, in regards to our last meeting, the last interaction. It resides in me for important past moments and details of future arrangements, if the date or circumstance is forewarned. Except when I forget.
So, when I say that a foggy mind is debilitating, please don’t discount this to be a mild headache or feverous episode. I am grateful that an MRI scan showed nothing out of place in my brain. Yet, I am also well aware that the physical condition of the brain is but one part of the puzzle. Between 2009 and 2015, I was on an anti-anxiety medication. In that same period, I met and subsequently became FB friends with a selection of people I have little to no memory of – at all. While there are people I continue to be friends with in person, which has reinforced those friendships, I cannot recall when we first met, or more significantly, first spoke in depth.
That I attribute this to the drug is because the clearest memories I have of those years is when I didn’t take it – when I knew I would be drinking. There have also been stories, poetry, that I have since discovered in my own handwriting, files, that I have no recollection of writing. This is equally of concern to me, for the poetry I write is essentially an archive of the feelings and experiences I had when I wrote it. It is memory inscribed on a page, as visceral to me as clay tablets were to the Sumerians (I wanted to write Cimmerians, but that’s the wrong mythos and they didn’t have a written language). When I perform, I drop back into that moment, into that memory.
This week, I began adding day to day tasks and notes to a physical calendar, aware of the potential for there being a void in my awareness and dreading the potential future this foreshadows. This sickness, this ‘long and unending covid’ appears to awaken past and potentially future illnesses, with what it inflames and gyrates. I wonder, then, if forgetfulness will be my future, and hope, if anything, I may one day forget this instance of dread, of fear. That I may forget the awareness of forgetfulness, and all that it entails. Not a nice thought, but certainly one to bookend a night of wakefulness, of living in memory, and searching for what simply isn’t there.
But, on a positive note, gone are the days where I must roll-over or winch the waistband of my belt into place. Last night I found my belt hanging where I have no recollection of placing it, over the laundry door. Perhaps, months ago, I returned from the beach all sandy, just as I did last night. A clue to the missing time, perhaps, maybe, there are others.