“We are fighting against this whole idea that everything people do has to be constantly chronicled,” Mr. Malice said. “People think that every thought they have, every experience — if it is not captured it is lost."
So notes a host of a party which bans tweets, blogs, photos, and the like, as described in the NYTimes.
This concept of lost experiences and memories is really at the heart of my blog, which I keep not only to inform friends and family of what we're up to, but also to record the same for posterity, for myself and for my kiddos. Sometimes, it's informational, like an article I find fascinating or a recipe I just made, but sometimes it's experiential, or, if you will, memorable, something the kids said, something we did, that I don't want to forget. In fact, when my sister recently asked me if we were leaving a legacy for the kids in the event of our untimely deaths (but that's another blog. Maybe.), my first thought was of this blog, which, while not objective or all-inclusive, will give the kids not only a record of their early days but a perspective on me, the narrator and actor in many of the posts.
I try hard to remember to record things in this blog, or in my journal (in which I write a page about the day every night), and to a much lesser extent in other places like their baby books (which are sadly ignored these days). And when I forgot to write something, or forgot something altogether, I get upset, almost as if by forgetting to write it down, I have forgotten it completely (and I think having a blog compounds the problem because the illusion of remembering and recording it all is there. Computers are seemingly so infallible and perfect, much more so than the mind. Which then becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy as we cease to use our minds and memories but instead rely on computers and other aids.). But sometimes, this in itself is true; my memory can't retain everything, particularly the ordinary, eveyday things I seek to record. Sure, I can remember big events--their births, my wedding(s),Sis in the emergency room on an inhaler (a long time ago), Bud hitting his head on the step, when they learned to walk, their first words--these are extraordinary, sometimes (hopefully) once in a lifetime events that I will recall for their sheer uniqueness. But what I seek to recall is more mundane than that, especially things I think I won't forget--like how their little voices sound or what songs they like to sing and what games they like to play--but do because of the huge number of things to remember.
But I can't remember it all. I can't even blog, or journal, or photograph or email a tiny percentage of it. I'd venture to say that even at my most present and mindful, I'm not even cognizant of most of what there could be to remember (and, interestingly, being present and mindful doesn't go well with trying to actively store memories for me, I guess because I'm in the present). At least until it's gone and I've forgotten and I realize that I don't remember. Right now, I am very keenly aware of the quick passage of time, of their babyhood into childhood, of 12 years together with Mama, of 20 years since I graduated from high school. Ask me what I remember of high school, or that first year with Mama, or even the first year with the babes.
And so, even though I still blog and the like, I am trying to be more comfortable with not remembering, not possessing every instance of our time together, not having and holding every moment of my life, first because it is not possible and second because it is not really a talisman against our being separated forever, as much as I wish it were. Because isn't that it? Isn't every little forgotten memory some kind of tiny death? (Isn't this one of the frightening aspects of Alzheimer's?) (And if my academic studies of the psychology behind collectors and collecting stand me in good stead, isn't fear of death one of the motivations behind collecting, to improbably stave off mortality and insure immortality?) And aren't I, as much as I try to embrace life as well as its end, still sad and fearful of the day I or they (heaven forbid I'm around when that happens) die and our creation of memories together is over. And all we have left is the memories we had already made? How then could I possibly be okay with forgetting or not trying to record for them or for me all of it? Especially if, as I frequently believe, there is no afterlife except that which exists in the memories of those left behind?
It is then I recall the Buddhist notion of suffering and unfulfillment, for this is the very heart of unfulfillment, even a sort of suffering, that there are things I won't recall, memories I can't keep, experiences I don't record, and beyond that, beyond the memories we've actually made, there are all the things we don't do, the things I won't be here for, all the unfulfillment. And so maybe by trying to be comfortable with not blogging it all, not remembering it all, living those tiny little deaths, I can be, in some way, ready for the bigger one.
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