Memories

Last night, we met friends for dinner. They were in town and we had not seen them in ages. We were neighbors in Irvine 30 years ago. It was a wonderful 3 hours of reminiscing and laughing and catching up. What struck me during dinner was that memories of people can be varied. What I remember may not be what they remember. I don't mean that we remember the event differently, but WHAT stays in our brain may be some small thing. For example, I remember going over to their house for dinner one night and they served a wine called Gewurztraminer. It was, by my wine taste today, a VERY sweet wine. Back then, I loved it and felt terribly sophisticated drinking it. Over the years, whenever I would see a bottle of it in the store, I would think of our old neighbors. They didn't even recall that dinner, but remembered that we had also drank that wine on a trip we took together to Solvang. Each of us had our own memories; little events that remain with us over the years.
We were discussing memories in a book club I once belonged to and someone asked, "How do you know it's YOUR memory and not something your parents told you about or showed you old photos. You had seen the pictures so many times, you almost thought you DID remember the event, but were actually too young. One woman said she knew the memory was her own because of smells. A certain smell of cooking always reminded her of being in her grandmother's kitchen. She says the smell takes her right back to that place. Some felt the same way about a color. Their mother or grammie had a dress that color and it always made them think of them wearing it.
Memory is tenuous. As we age, we forget many things. Someone told me, what we start to forget is "noun retrieval" ~ person, place or thing. We know we know the name; we just can't quite grab it at the moment and say it. I have experienced this often. Frustrating! Some say they can remember a memory from 20 years ago better than what they ate for breakfast yesterday!
Wouldn't it be lovely if we could make a list of memories we wanted to keep forever and a list of those we want to forget forever? I would toss out the loud fights my parents had before their ugly divorce. I would toss out the unkind comments people have made that left me feeling worthless. I would toss recurring nightmares. I would keep forever the look my husband gave me at a high school party from across the room 39 years ago ~ a look that told me he adored me. I would keep forever the sound of my 3 grandchildren calling my name when I arrive. I would keep forever Maddy's demand for the departing ritual of "hug, kiss, lick".
Hopefully, as I get older, someone will read me this blog and I will be reminded what things mattered to me, that I mattered.