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Or this: You put something in a special place so you’ll know exactly where it is, and then you can’t remember where that special place was. Or what about this one: You know the name of a favorite book or flower or restaurant as well as you know your name, but it just won’t come to you. And then there’s the classic: You’ve shopped until you’ve dropped and you’re heavily laden with bags and boxes...but where did you park the car? Ah, memory! It’s that fickle, flighty friend—or foe—that you can’t do without and sometimes can’t do with. Now right up front, let me say that I’m not referring to aging. We all have memory lapses. But would someone please tell me why they have to be in either embarrassing or inconvenient situations? That’s the riddle of a lifetime. I have a theory, though. The brain is a storage bin, and like any other container of sorts, it has a capacity. When your brain fills up, it has to discard certain information to make room for more. Unfortunately you do not get to select what information flies away, as you would if you’re sorting out your computer. You can’t just delete what you want. No, that is the brain’s random function. So, there you are, introducing a friend or trying to remember a book title, and the brain has decided—on its own—that it’s no longer useful information. You have little say in the matter. In fact, you don’t even know it until you have to call up that certain fact or snippet, and it’s not there. Alas. I’ve read books on how to improve memory, and I’ve heeded their advice. I’ve done their exercises and devotedly followed their call. And then my brain goes on vacation. Rather, my brain has gone on a rampage of deletion and that place where the fact should be is a vacuum. Well, dear readers, the good thing about these quirks of memory is that we all have them. I find it fascinating that I can remember the most trivial things—what color the ducks were on my pinafore when I was age three, or the words to a nursery rhyme from Mother Goose—but when I need to remember a certain substantial fact to prove a point or keep a conversation going, it has seemingly flown the coop. Now what use is the color of ducks on a dress or the words to a nursery rhyme from Mother Goose? Nada, nil, zilch. Perhaps we need to be nicer to our brains, cajole them with jokes or sayings or rhymes that are easy on them. Most of us don’t need to know the formula for rocket fuel or the distance between the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian. We would seldom use such factoids as the capital of Laos or the height reached by the first helium balloon. That’s why we have Google. All we have to do is fit more snugly into our thinking caps and make mental notes on how to remember names, places, dates, appointments and the like. The best way I’ve found when memory escapes is to improvise and keep a happy heart. Laugh it off! Apologize. Declare a senior moment (even if you’re not a senior). Keep going and hope for the best. We live in a world thick with facts, figures, information and details. We can’t expect to remember everything, and everyone forgets things from time to time. It’s a trait we all have in common. So march on, trek on, carry on, talk on, and I hope you’ll find, as I do, that people are forgiving of, even amused by, your lapse in memory. It’s not the end of the world. And at the end of the day, you won’t even remember that you forgot something. Oh, well. Sylvia Weinstein is publisher and editor of the Oyster Pointer. She can be reached at 873.4523 or by e-mail at EditorOP@aol.com. |
To Market, To Market – Memory: Friend or foe?