Chapter 3: Where did I put my memory?

One week to Christmas - every year it comes around quicker. I'm no sooner finished taking down the tree and sweeping up the needles then I'm putting a new one back up again. I'm sure I'll eventually get to the point where I'll get an artificial tree and just leave it up all year round.

This is my last posting till after Christmas, so happy holidays to you and your family and loved ones!

              

CHAPTER 3: WHERE DID I PUT MY MEMORY?

We rented a movie the other night. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this; in fact, lately, it’s unusual for us to go out to a movie. In the past 5 years we’ve almost never seen a film the year it comes out. Going to the movies just doesn’t grab me the way it used to, partly because I loathe these huge multiplex cinemas, and partly because, as an over-50 female not interested in “chick flicks”, there are very few films made for people like me.

There’s nothing new about this – since the 1950s movies have been skewed to teenagers and young adults, because they’re the ones who go see them. But you have to wonder if maybe it isn’t a chicken-and-egg situation; maybe young people go to see those movies precisely because they’re made for them and if Hollywood made movies the rest of us liked, maybe we’d go see a film more often. But what do I know? There are market research companies that do nothing all day long but try to work out who goes to the movies and why. If they say people want to see movies about zombie aliens blowing up trucks, who am I to differ?

Anyway, back to the movie. It was called “Last Orders”, and it starred Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, and David Hemmings. Tom Courtenay was in it, too, and Helen Mirren. Maybe you’ve seen it? It’s about a group of old friends who take a trip to the seaside when one of them dies in order to spread his ashes on the water. Sounds a bit morbid but it’s not. At least, I don’t think it’s morbid, but then I’m someone who considers a trip to a cemetery a great day out. I like wandering around old tombstones, thinking about the people buried there and the lives they had and how we all, eventually, end up dead – actually, that is pretty morbid, now that you mention it.

So we watched this movie and it wasn’t until maybe two minutes before it went to black and the credits started rolling that I realized I’d already seen it. Six years ago. Watched the whole thing and had no idea . . . no memory of the plot, characters, dialogue . . . nothing. Not till right near the end – there’s this scene where Helen Mirren, who plays Amy, the dead man’s wife, is saying good-bye to her disabled daughter – well, I don’t want to give the plot away but that’s when it hit me. That’s when I remembered that I’d already seen it.

I mention this because it’s the most recent example of something that’s happening more and more often – not people saying goodbye to their daughters. That may or may not be happening more often, I’m not in a position to say. No, I’m talking about my memory. Specifically, the lack of it. I just don’t remember things the way I used to.

Oh, I know my name and the names of my children and depending on how much wine I’ve had the night before I generally wake up knowing what day it is. I don’t forget important occasions like birthdays or dentist appointments and I haven’t got lost in my own neighbourhood since I was 6. (All of which is a relief, to be honest. The Alzheimer Society of Canada lists 10 warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease and those are some of the things they mention: repeatedly forgetting important appointments, getting lost driving, getting lost walking in familiar areas like your own neighbourhood. There’s nothing funny about Alzheimer’s and I suggest if you are truly concerned about your memory – or that of a loved one – that you check out the website: http://www.alzheimer.ca/)

All of the women I know are forgetting things these days – we laugh about it when it’s not driving us crazy. I’ll be emailing a friend of mine and suddenly I can’t remember the name of her children. (“And how are the little ones?” only takes you so far, especially when her kids are old enough to have “little ones” of their own.) Or some store clerk will ask for my telephone number and I’ll draw a complete blank. I’m forever signing up for online services and forgetting my username and password. (Before you say, “Why don’t you write them down?” you should know that I do just that, and then forget where I’ve written them.) I put things away in “safe” places and never find them again. And, of course, my favourite – coming downstairs to get something and having no idea why I’m there. Do you have that happen? Do you have to turn around and go all the way back upstairs in order to remember? Welcome to my world.

Now, this is going to come as a shock but when I was young I did not have a huge range of talents. I couldn’t throw a ball, I definitely couldn’t catch one, and I’m the only person I know who grew up in northern Canada and never learned to skate. I did eventually get the hang of riding a bike, but unless you’re qualifying for the Tour de France this is not something that garners you much praise. In terms of athletic endeavour, it’s seen as slightly more strenuous than walking upright and just below jogging.

At the risk of being appearing immodest, however, I had a prodigious memory. I could – and did – rattle off poetry at the drop of a hat. When I was 8, I memorized “Alice in Wonderland” from cover to cover and by the time I was 10 I could, if requested, recite the entire libretto of “HMS Pinafore” off by heart. (Not surprisingly, I was seldom asked to do this.) If you’re getting the sense that I was a rather solitary child, you wouldn’t be far wrong. While my peers were involved in healthy outdoor activities like playing kick-the-can and learning how to smoke, I was trilling away to Sir Joseph Porter, KCB, and his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. My parents, I think, thought of me in much the same light as you would a talking gerbil: an astonishing feat, no doubt, but how will she ever make a living?

This memory thing continued right through adolescence – when I was 12, I won a prize at church camp for knowing more Bible verses than anyone else. Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” See? I can still do it. But my telephone number? Forget it.

Years ago I knew enough Spanish to carry on a relatively civilized conversation; these days I’m left with, “Dónde está mi abrigo?” “No sé, lo siento mucho.” (“Where’s my overcoat?” “I don’t know – sorry.”) I have no idea why this particular exchange has stayed with me when so many more interesting and colourful phrases have vanished. I did, at one time, know how to insult someone in Spanish – loosely translated, it went along the lines of, “Your mother is no stranger to the caresses of barnyard animals.” Perhaps it’s just as well I’ve forgotten. I’m sure it has no place in a book written by a respectable middle-aged woman.

Anyway, it’s not just about remembering things I used to know; it’s about trying to learn anything new. My son, who’s been teaching in Korea for the past three years, brought his girlfriend home to meet us last Christmas. I’d been hoping to ask her about her family and the work she does and, you know, generally get to know her, but my efforts to learn a few simple Korean phrases were fruitless. Her English is quite good and we managed all right – still, a week is a long time to nod and smile and talk about how cold it is in Canada in December.

There are ways, they tell me, to improve your memory – things like mnemonics, which I remember from elementary school: “Every good boy deserves fudge” for the lines of the treble staff, Roy. G. Biv for the colours of the rainbow. (My husband has one he came up with in university to remember the cranial nervous system of the rat: “Old ’orrible oranges taste terrible and f***ing awful.” I asked him what it stood for and he said he couldn’t remember . . . which is one of the problems with this device. You remember the mnemonic rather than the information.)

I suspect, though, that what’s needed in my case is something a little more radical – lately I’ve been practising “neurobics”. Think of it as pilates for the brain. Proponents say just doing routine things a little differently will help your brain stay fit. Using your non-dominant hand to write or brush your teeth, for instance – which, by the way, is harder than it sounds. Being right-handed, I tried brushing my teeth with my left; it was ridiculously awkward, the strangest part being that my right hand immediately went into spasm, imitating the brushing movements, as if it was holding some kind of invisible toothbrush. Very weird.

I’ve had better luck with some of the other suggestions, such as taking a shower with my eyes closed, which is really quite restful, and distinguishing coins using only my sense of touch. (They suggest that, if you really want a challenge, you try to do the same with paper money but as I never have any it seems a pretty pointless exercise. I mean, who carries cash any more? Try it with your credit cards, instead. Now, that would be a challenge.)

These exercises make sense, of course, only if you do them. Which means you have to remember to do them. Which brings us back to where we started in the first place.

Maybe I just have to be realistic about this whole memory thing. These lapses are probably just a normal part of aging and not necessarily a sign that I’m slipping into dementia. But it’s interesting, isn’t it, how different it is when you’re young? You’re like an athlete who takes her prowess for granted. You don’t think about why things come easily to you until they don’t.

One day you’re reeling off Bible verses like a madwoman and then, all of a sudden, you’re sitting through movies you don’t remember watching. It gives you pause, I tell you.