Several years ago, a couple friends and I befriended some tourists from Austria. They were in town for several weeks and after a little while, we all became inseparable. But of course, their time to go home eventually came. I’d become especially good friends with one of them, and as we said our goodbyes, we talked about all our awesome times, and what good memories they’d be later in life. In truth, I don’t really remember most of them anymore, but what I do remember is when he said to me, “Your whole life is a memory.” And I immediately rebutted that statement with words of how no, your whole life really isn’t a memory. When you really think about it, how much of your life do you actually remember? First of all, you’re sleeping for a third of it. After that, do you remember what you ate for lunch last week, or what you and your friends were talking about when you ate it? Do you remember who said hi to you, or remember that you had a piece of food stuck in your teeth that bugged you for hours? Do you really remember anything about lunch, or any other parts of your day? You might for the short term, but sooner or later, they’re gone… tossed out to sea with the other unimportant memories of the day. If you’re lucky, you’ll retain some of them, but usually as nothing more than a stripped down version of what really happened, a few sporadic milliseconds in time that you can somehow still visualize. In reality, we really only remember a tiny fraction of our lives, less than 1%. And so when you take that into consideration, it’s especially baffling what kind of memories manage to make it into that 1%. Like tonight, when I was hiking.
Tonight’s hike is one I’m sure I won’t remember. I do the same hike all the time, and nothing was particularly special about it. And on my way down, I hear the church bells ring in town, echoing off the cliffs. And though I’ve heard those bells a zillion times while hiking that trail, the first thought in my head as they rang tonight was a memory of me learning to play that tune when I took piano lessons as a kid. And piggybacking on top of that memory, came the little cartoon men that illustrated the Alfred D’Auberge piano lesson books I was reading the music from. So, I’m hiking down the Squaw trail tonight, thinking of little cartoon men in funny hats, and wondering why, of all the things to remember in my life, that made it into the memory bank. And I really can’t answer that. Perhaps it’s just that we never really lose anything, that all those memories just float out to sea, but they’re still in there somewhere. They may dissolve and never be able to piece themselves back together, but sometimes, the bits will come floating back to the surface… as little cartoon men… while you’re hiking at dusk… in the desert.
Is it weird that I just wrote an entire blog post about that? Probably. Whatever.
