I think, routinely, about the subject of memory, and the ways memory affects our lives.
I think often about childhood-related memories, in particular early childhood memories--those which we remember with clarity, or those which are vague, elusive, perhaps mysterious to us in their elusiveness.
I'm also intrigued by memories which can suddenly reappear, after many decades, seemingly unbidden.
Such as:
I was at my desk, a few months ago, making a list of things I had to get, during errands later on.
I stood up from the desk, and held the small piece of paper with the list on it. I remembered something I wanted to add to the list. I took a pen from the desk, and began jotting down the added item--holding the paper not against the desk, but in the palm of my hand.
From this insignificant gesture--from the motion of the pen bearing down on the paper in my palm--a memory, somewhat echo-like, came forth (something I am sure I had not thought of for decades).
It was a memory of my maternal grandfather--a man I loved dearly--who died in 1970. He was seventy-five, when he died. I was fourteen.
I remembered how my grandfather often did the same thing: made notes to himself, while standing up, holding a piece of paper in his hand. I remembered watching him jot things down that he wanted to remember, things he had to do.
More than fifty years after his death, it startled me, and moved me greatly, to recall (in an instant) this detail about him, a memory that had been lost to me for decades--revealed simply by the way one was standing, holding a pen, and writing a word or two on a slip of paper.
