Ars Memorativa

In Monday night's memoir worskhop, a student wondered why she remembered certain parts of her life so vividly and completely blanked on others. I have tried researching this. One study indicated that memory is so strongly linked to emotion (physically, it's in the part of the brain that processes emotion) that what we humans have is not so much a data retrieval system but more of an associative recall. The really interesting studies I found indicate that certain periods of our lives tend to be recalled more easily and accurately. For example, we tend to remember more between the ages of 12 and 21--and high school falls right in the middle of that period. This might explain why our memories from high school tend to be vivid and detailed.


So if we remember more, and those memories are linked to emotions, it makes sense that reunions would have such pull. Very few people I know are indifferent about reunions--they either anticipate them eagerly or brush them off completely. My husband has absolutely no desire to attend any of his reunions, and for him, the past is in the past--he has little interest.


There is also research about how the act of writing something down can help you remember, which seems\ completely obvious, except for this: Annie Dillard, one of my favorite writers, warns us that if you start to write your memories down, what you will remember is not the memory itself but what you wrote about it--basically, the narrative you imposed on it. If there is anything that this act of reunioning requires, it is the telling-and retelling--of stories, and the revising of those stories that time and distance compels us to do.


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