What are Memories?

Reflections Over a Glass of Hard Cider

The other day I bought myself a can of hard cider and sat down in the sunny spot in the living room to enjoy it. This is worth mentioning because I don’t drink. Not from being in a program. Just a personal preference 99% of the time. But somehow the sweet taste and the golden bubbles carried me backwards into reverie.

We always hear as we get older that we "have our memories". Yes, we do. And it's not all it's cracked up to be. At best it’s a consolation prize. At worst it is more like mental torture.

First, even for those who lived an absolutely charmed life, it is double-edged. The people telling you how lucky you are to have memories to enjoy are signaling that you are OLD. The memories are all you have left. You are no longer a player. And memories, are not the same as the original experience. They are a shadow.

I want to feel the way I felt when I was 19 and drinking a frosty Heineken from the bottle in the garage apartment in back of the house with Bob Whalen. Oh boy was he no good in 100 different ways. But it is more about how my body felt to me, and damn I looked good, and on that afternoon I KNEW it. I didn't always know how good I looked. Even when I was pretty strung out.

Second, there are plenty of terrible memories in most people's lives. And those are the ones that come unbidden when we are trying to rest. Or when we sit with our morning coffee. Basically anytime when the mind is not otherwise engaged.

Strangely enough, having big gaps in memory is disconcerting. Even if I am aware that what I can't remember is 90% awful, I still want to get the memory back.

The blank spot for several months in the early 70s when I know I was running the streets in Berkeley but can't remember a single detail. The waking up in my car in my driveway with a fuzzy tongue and a pounding head, but missing at least 10 hours...If only these events would recede back into the wall after I gain recall. But, because they are bad, I am sure they would stick around and replay in a loop.

Yes, my early days, the ones that make the strongest memories, were filled with darkness. If you knew me then maybe you didn’t see it, and maybe you didn’t say anything if you did. The existence of big gaps in recall is not surprising.

But this thing--the memory of me before all of that…one of the hardest things about growing old is the giving up on that version of me. I liked looking and feeling that way. Time is the brutal ether in which we swim. And memories are not quite like being there. The cider did nothing to turn back the pages to April, 1975.

But let's say you are still getting out into the world, making NEW memories. This is an improvement, but the truth is that the physical world does get harder to navigate as you age. You do lose stamina. You don't look or feel the same. Going to Europe at 75 is very different from going at 20, or even 40.

That's travel though. There are other things. I think publishing a book at 80 is as intrinsically satisfying as doing it at 40. Though it would be a bigger career bump at 40.

One of the only exceptions is sharing good memories or at least funny ones in retrospect with people who were there. And laughing about it. It must be because sharing it increases the connection. And that is what REALLY helps with the losses of age.

It isn't the memories, it's the connection with the people who share those memories. I don't want to be left alone with mine.

Hey, Nineteen, do you remember?