faded photographs

I caught a snippet of an interview with Nora Ephron on NPR recently, discussing her book I Remember Nothing, in which she humorously shared the middle-aged phenomenon of a failing memory. She joked how grateful she was that we had the internet and Google to help us remember things we had forgotten. Don't laugh. I almost had to Google, "Sleepless in Seattle" to recapture Nora Ephron's name for this entry. Thankfully, some of the old synapses are still firing, so I was able to summon her name before heading for the iMac.

I can attest that Nora's experience is not isolated. Many of my friends have lapses during our conversations as they struggle to remember a name, a phrase, whatever. I, too have my lapses and an eavesdropper nearby would laugh at the stuttering silence that punctuates, no dominates many of our exchanges.

This reality was no more evident than during an encounter I had a while ago with an old girlfriend. She held memories of our past that I honestly had no memory of. Either she had fabricated them from a mixture of past events that did not involve me, or worse yet, that DID involve me but had slipped through the ever deteriorating neural net of my aging brain. Facing the choices, regardless of what the truth might be, I prefer to think the fault was hers. "Do you remember when . . . " she began many times during that encounter. I would suppress any outward manifestations of the wince that would invariably accompany this opening phrase. "Yes," I agreed much too quickly, far in advance of the memories she would relate. She would continue with her story, ignoring my ill-timed response. I would listen in horror to yet another unfamiliar story. I didn't know whether to be embarrassed for her or for me. When she completed her latest story, she looked at me expectantly, prompting me for a reassuring response of shared memories. "I remember everything that happened between us." I responded.