Remembering Stuff

“I’m getting so old. I just can’t remember anything anymore.”

Okay, I understand and accept that forgetfulness is weird and awkward. We talk to someone about this movie and that house repair and that small restaurant from which we ordered amazing food a few weeks ago and it feels as if we are talking with 95% of the words we used to know. What was that guy’s name? Where did I read that really powerful thing about political strategy now?

So, first of all, let me just say what I always want to say. I frequently got tongue-tied in fast-moving conversations when I was 25 and when I was 40 and I still do. If we are going to careen down a bunch of conversational lanes we need to give our brains a chance to keep up. Recipes and the name of kids we knew in high school and that chemical that gets rid of beetles but doesn’t hurt birds and the name of the person running in our district and ...

If we are going to free-form talk, our brains are going to hiccup. I find this strategy works: Say what you can spit out right now and then laugh. If what you are forgetting is important - send a fast email to yourself and the answer will show up in your brain's in-box sooner or later. Like, oh yeah, it was Liam Neeson who said, “What I have is a very special set of skills…” Though I forget what movie that was.

It’s kind of a compliment if your brain can’t always keep up with all the stuff you learned in your long and busy life.

But I also wonder about this.

What if instead of denigrating ourselves for what we can’t remember – what if part of the job of being as old as we are now – what if we are SUPPOSED to revisit memories? We’ve been a lot of places and experienced a lot of amazing and awful adventures. If we don’t spend time remembering those places and times and people, then are they just dead? Is there benefit to us as individuals and to our communities to spend some time remembering where we’ve been and who we knew?

I’m not talking about telling our tales to the young. The young are pretty busy. If they want to know, they can ask.

But for the sake of respecting your own path, where did you play when you were a kid? Do you remember wonderful birthday parties you had or hosted? Did you travel by yourself in your life? What was a complicated meal you tried to cook? Did you see the sun rise? Did you ever cry when everyone around you was happy and you had to leave the room? Did you give money to a person on the street when they asked?

I’m not suggesting we wallow in memories.

But since the next week or two are going to be anxious, let me suggest taking minutes here and there to remember some of the places you’ve been, some of the adventures you had, some of the excellent people you knew, some of the battles you lost and the ones you won.

Because those are your roots.

They are our roots.

We need our roots now.