Remembering Everything

On Memory, Personality, and Rocky Horror

It’s recently come to my attention that people have very different abilities to remember their lives and interactions. I think I’m on the low side. I think if I meet you and we have a conversation, the next time we meet I remember less than you do. I’ve always thought everyone’s memory was as foggy as mine, except for the rare exceptions. Now, I think I’m on the way foggy side. I remember embarrassing things, mistakes, upset. I’ve chosen to love these because of their exquisite (wincing) clarity. But my slate wipes pretty clean sometimes. Think of what an advantage it is to remember the last conversation! For me, eventually information gets in and stays, but it takes a few tries. And this despite real interest. Of course, like anyone else, the more something matters to me, the more likely I am to remember it.

I know a lot of history and literature, (I have a PhD in history and I’ve taught literature in MFA programs, publish in both) but it was a lot of study. Well, no I think I do have a facility for that. So maybe it’s a trade-off? That’s always the fantasy, isn’t it? When there is a deficit we try to believe there’s a gold lining somehow. Another gold lining is that maybe I have a generalist memory—I can keenly recall the feel of all sorts of distinct eras in my life and my children’s lives.

I could be wrong about this, my foggy memory, it’s all perception. I just can’t get over thinking about how many character traits could just be a result of someone with a bad life memory. Too, it’s possible that memoirists and fiction writers are better off with foggy memories because it makes the key ones so visible.

My husband John’s memory is better than mine. It’s better than most people’s, but I forget that. It’s good to have this off shore memory bank, but there’s a down side. I feel like my life is only partially mine because he’s got more of it than I do.

I’ve always laughed along with Nora Ephron’s I Remember Nothing, where she jauntily confesses that she was at some of the most iconic historical moments of our time, covering them as a journalist, and that all she remembers is where they went to eat afterwards. She was backstage at the Ed Sullivan Beatles show, all she could recall is that the screaming girls were obnoxious. It’s kind of tragic, but here I am reading her book and laughing for the nth time. She wrote and directed some iconic films. And reading anything about her life tells you she was a wildly social person—the kind that had a-list celebrities coming to her for advice. So she had marvelous gifts. She just couldn’t remember. A flicker, here and there.

I’ve learned some tricks about remembering from memoirists writing about memoir. Say you get a reminder of something that happened that you don’t remember. Say someone says that you saw a stage version of Rocky Horror back in 2001 and you say, No, John, I’d remember that. And then they break out a Playbill from the show and you see the narrator was played by Sally Jessie Raphael and ping ping you remember that: your brain shows a still image of Sally Jessie spotlit, way over on stage left. Oh and the guy who played Frank’s face looks familiar. Ok, damnit, I was there.

Now when you get a glimmer of a memory like this, don’t walk away.

Sometimes if you sit with what you’ve got, you can get some more. For me it can take more than a day for the memory to resolve with clarity. My memory likes being reminded of things in this way, but my feelings are somehow hurt about it. It’s a little bit about ego, I feel bad at being bad at something. But more it’s remorse for what of my life has been lost to my weak memory. Only lately have I thought that it may have cost me a lot in life. It’s hard to build on what keeps disappearing.

I remember when I first heard of people who can’t recognize faces, I thought maybe I had that. But no, it’s more that it takes me a few times to remember someone. And now I’m thinking that I must have seemed socially weird some times because I simply don’t remember past meetings.

Meanwhile, I think I am super present in the moment.

I’m thinking about Rocky because there’s a new one on Broadway with an amazing cast. Rachel Dratch is the narrator. We’re going to the show with some friends who had never seen the movie, so we invited them to go to the Saturday night movie with us at the Angelica East. It was a blast. We’ve been to this theater’s show a few times when our college-age kids wanted to check it out. There’s always a preset shadow cast—unlike when I was a kid and whoever wanted just went up front and acted out a scene.

People yell out whatever they want, of course, but before the show the leader of the shadow cast gives the audience a little lesson in some call backs to the screen that even a complete newcomer, a “virgin,” can do. Yell out “Asshole” whenever Brad Majors says his name. They even sell a little bag of props: a rubber glove to snap when Frank snaps his, cards to throw when cards are mentioned, a sheet of newspaper to cover your head during the rain scene, like Janet and Brad. People brought lots of props from home too. When Frank proposed a toast so much toasted bread flew threw the air that the whole place got the giggles. It went on a while, as people rethrew what landed in their laps. Ditto the toilet paper rolls when Brad says “Great Scott!”. At the opening wedding scene, there was so much rice thrown that you could scoop it off your lap and throw it again.

When I was a teenager, me and my friends went to see Rocky Horror almost every weekend, either Sat night or, more often, the Sunday matinee. My sister, older, and her friends went too. You could buy weed on line for the movie and smoke it while you watched. Cigarettes were allowed back then. Mostly we just watched but we also came dressed up sometimes, and sometimes went up front and acted out our pet character. I was Magenta. Now I’m there with my husband who also misspent his youth with Rocky Horror, and our nineteen year old son, along with friends and relatives.

I will say that to me Rocky Horror was rebellion, and sex, both things you don’t want to see with your parents, and it was my husband who thought it was all just good fun and bought the family tickets the first time. Meanwhile I do actually remember that I first went to see the movie when I was a kid and they were showing it at Adelphi University, where my dad taught, and we went as a family. I don’t remember much but I do remember wanting desperately to join in with the callbacks but being too timid to do so, and then when I finally dared, I went too loud. The adults near me were surprised, held their ears, laughed. I was embarrassed, and that’s why I remember the event, from that one wince. Why had our parents taken us to this? I have to think they didn’t realize what was in it. I’ll ask them, but why would they remember?

Some of my favorite callbacks are predictive ones. You have to be very sure when to say them, but the payoff is big. I dare these less often than the straightforward callback, which you can’t get wrong. I love when someone says, “Hey Tim, whose movie is this?” And then he pops onto the screen singing, “My my my, my my my, my my my” which sounds like, “Mine, mine, mine, mine mine mine mine mine mine.” From where I am now, it’s so dear, he’s so young, so young and just eating the screen.

And what do I remember? I remember everything.

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Hey there captains and cadets, how’s the weather? Late February is my favorite time to hate winter, because it’s almost over. But this one is giving us a run for our money.

To create in these days isn’t easy but helps. If creating is a bridge too far, consider considering your own memory for your life. Is it pretty good or do you to find out things—that happened in your life—from other people? Does it help or hurt to have a memory like yours? All thoughts welcome here. It’s interesting right?

Stay warm, stay cool, stay with me, and I shall return to encourage us again.

love,

Jennifer