Writers draw on all the little details of experience, no matter how trivial or insignificant, as sources to add life and interest to their writing. One never knows at what time a mannerism, image, attitude, sound or smell might be just what was needed to add interest to fact or fiction.
Edna Ferber, in her autobiography A Peculiar Treasure, likened her storehouse of details to an old trunk in her mother’s attic. Therein lay scraps of velvet, lace and satin; belt buckles, buttons, ribbon, artificial flowers and other bits of beauty that could be used to add style and color to hats, garments and household linens. I like her simile of the trunk in the attic. Supposedly, our memories are located at the top of the house in the attic. I’m afraid, though, that I have a little trouble thinking of my own memory as being in any such lofty location. My memory is more accurately described as the contents of a Dumpster. I certainly don’t picture it as being anywhere nearly as organized and tidy as things packed into a trunk.
For many years, I could not forget things even when I wanted to. And conversely, I never seemed to be able to put my finger easily on any particular item in that disorderly mess. I’d stir aimlessly around in the jumble and find all sorts of totally useless stuff that should be tossed out but which resurfaced regularly when I was on the trail of something else. A fellow writer once pointed out that, while it may be a pile of garbage at first glance, I am good at recycling it.
At best, I might call such success intuition — most likely it’s simply pure accident. You know that nice feeling you have after the trash has been hauled away and all the wastebaskets are empty? I thought that if just once I could get my memory emptied of all the redundancies and superfluencies, I’d keep it neat and tidy and become a better writer. What actually happened was that something sneaked in when I was unconscious during surgery and took away, not only my collection of odds and ends, but the majority of my vocabulary. And, I’ve discovered, a lot of memories that I would have preferred to retain.
I thought of it as a “morphine hangover” when I first found myself searching for words I’d used for most of my life. Unable to express myself fluently I began to wonder if that was how it felt to be autistic or to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Being unable to communicate easily was, to say the least, frightening. I was assured that my condition was temporary and that I would recover all I had lost once the effects of the morphine had worn off. I worked with a speech therapist, read familiar poetry and reread novels to reclaim familiar words, worked crosswords and other word puzzles, began writing letters and eventually resumed writing this column. I thought I’d pretty much completely recovered – until, one day, I couldn’t remember the last name of a long-time friend.
What had happened?
To help myself remember, I employed all the usual tricks that had worked in the past; I ran through the alphabet expecting the name to pop up when I reached the right letter; I pictured her face, mannerisms and voice with no luck; I thought of other friends associated with her and had no trouble remembering their names, so why couldn’t I recall hers? I do have copies of some poems she wrote and I’m sure her last name is on them, but I was determined to make myself remember without “cheating.”
Frustrated, I put the problem out of my mind for the time being and concentrated on other things. As happens to most of us when we struggle to remember some elusive fact, I awoke one morning having “talked” with my friend in my dreams, and found that I remembered her last name. With great relief from all the dire things that had been lurking in the back of my mind, I knew that, while I have probably forgotten a lot of trivial information, the important things are still there. I just have to quit trying so hard and let my internal search engine do the work. Who knows — that Dumpster memory of mine may yet emerge as a well-organized trunk in my attic.
A former volunteer and substitute teacher in the Solon schools, Milli is an artist and poet who lives near Morse where she also creates unique greeting cards and handmade books.