I Remember...

not just sentimental yearning

So much of experience is driven by memory, transformation of what was once real and true into a visual picture sensation connected to a personal relationship to time.

Even though past and future are a construct, like time, to help us navigate the movement of our brains, the fleeting present is all we have. Pause to sit still and you may find that tethering attention to the breath of each moment reveals just how strong is the lure to return to the comfort of memory and an imagined abstract future.

I never visualized the future as it actually is for me now. Certain memories remain as shards that survived the passage of hours. They rise up now and then as ghosts, evidence of a past—a fixed truth rather than a sentimental glorification of another time.

I remember the ammonia smell of the Tonette perm that soaked my hair in tiny pink rubber rollers in the 1950s to give my fine straight hair the fluff and curl of Shirley Temple.

I remember eating Fritos and Pepsi in 1960 while watching with my grandmother the Lennon Sisters sing and dance on the Lawrence Welk Show.

I remember the bell sound on a truck we called The Popsicle Man as it slowly drove down my street just as we were finished eating supper in a post WWII suburb of Buffalo.

This strategy for listing memory was made into a book called I Remember in 1970 by Joe Brainard (1942-1994). The “I remember” prompt is popular with writing groups. I first encountered it through the teacher, Natalie Goldberg.

As someone coming out of the 20th Century, I aim to embrace as much of the 21st Century as possible. Aligned as a fairly “modern” individual, I tend to be more transpersonal than transhuman with a view through a lens of consciousness rather than tech.

Now, in our post-truth era, AI seems to have a mark on every video, image, and story we encounter in the media. Who knows what is real and true anymore?

This form of reality is likely altering young minds in unknown ways. The re-opening of the renovated New Museum in New York in March will feature a show called New Humans: Memories of the Future. I would like to find my way there to see the new building and show.

Some artists anticipate the future…

The residue of memory serves as a great comfort. I remember freedom and feel a sense of gratitude for knowing what that was. Essentially, that amounts to a lot of time in life being in places on my own when not one person knew my whereabouts and there was no way to be contacted.

The world felt fairly friendly. Dangers were everywhere, but not overly exposed.

Blame “ignorance is bliss” in a time before so much media, documentation, labeling and judgement—before tracking of words, actions, self-expression and location.

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