The dynamic aspect of aging
Is the compresion and elongation of time
As it is tracked in your memory
The notion that certain eras of your life
Feel like and instant, while others give
The impression of having lasted years.
It's like reading a comic book through
Someone else's eyes.
Certain panels are lingered on, give more meaning
Or appreciated more fully, while others
Are passed over quickly.
And the cruel part is how those panels are chosen.
At random? Maybe. But it's often in a way that would
Lead you to believe that whole tracks of your life,
The real estate that makes you who you are is poison,
That there's a nuclear wasteland that goes an awfully long time,
While the habitable are small slivers of land subject to erosion.
Even the healthiest mind
Can parse out land in a way that
Feels unwell
And photo plays a part for sure.
Images that are material and can be referred to at any time
Suplant the hazier memories that give out under the way of
A life long lived
That is to say that the thing you believe is your memory
Is a simulacra of a memory, and that's two layers
Of no lo longer belonging to you
It's disturbing to think about
An example: I remember being asked to talk to our parish priest
And later, a therapist, but I don't have
Any memory of being in crisis.
I have no idea why I was asked to have those conversations
Or visit those people.
The specifics in this case, the incidents, feel bigger
Than the gestalt, as counterintuitive as that seems
I remember crying on the phone on easter,
I remember exposed pipes in a space that was designed to be depressing
And that was the first time that I've encountered some thing like that
I believe that's why it's
So indeleble in my memory
So visual. Made a deep crevasse in me
I didn't imagine there were places like that
And then suddenly
I have to conduct life knowing there are places like that
And the strategy for a young person is to avoid them
And avoid the thought and the memory moving forward
But it informs so much of what I do now,
It's hard to force back down that hole
Years ago I sang: "no needles, no babies, no jail"
And that's about as instructive as I ever sought out to be
The most helpful I could ever manage to be
And that's a product of my memory
Because horror movies don't pause on the jumpscares,
But life can. Your brain does often
And maybe that's the most justified of social anxieties
The idea that any unkind word or indelicate comment
Can be someone else's lasting memory
Not just of you, because that's rather immaterial
More frighteningly, it can sum up a period in their lives
Even if your role in someone's life isn't particularly important
A random exchange could be
If you reflect too deeply on it you become the man who
Can't navigate sidewalks for fear of stepping on ants
But even taken at its most reasoned and reasonable, the fear is real
Because while often offenses are choice, feelings are not
And there's a non consensual aspect to memory
That anyone would feel uncomfortable with
I don't care to think about it
I prefer the fantasy that memories are
Something you impart rather than inflict
And that you can somehow curate how you'll be remembered
I suppose everybody prefers that notion
For myself, I like to imagine
There's going after a time in my life where
I'm going to have access to memories
Of the most mundane sort, the type that
Don't currently stab into my line of sight
But just sort of hazily hang in the periphery
And I hope, I hope that's what old age imparts
I hope that's what twilight years shine a light on
Because the mundane were so satisfying in retrospect
Hours spent on a carpet playing video games
Make it more specific
Hours spent on a carpet playing Zombies Ate My Neighbours on a Genesis
Well, that's not particularly edifying
You'd be hard pressed to say that that added
Something profound to me as a person moving forward
But as I get older I tend to think that those
Maybe those are what I would like to have shaped me
Rather than what did
The unremarkable that makes up so much of our lives being
More important ultimately than the action
How many parts of a song can be dynamic before it becomes just a din?
White noise
Maybe better that it just starts white noise