I’m not great at remembering a lot of my life. The saying my memory is like a sieve feels so true for me. I remember feeling things––so many things, so many feelings––but details like names and dates, place names and events, seep through the fine mesh of my recollection, seemingly washed away to nonexistence. I’ll often say to myself, Memorize this moment. This is beautiful. Or devastating or meaningful or profound. I think, I will surely remember this. Mostly I don’t though.
I wish I’d caught some of those moments, slippery fish that they are, and saved them, put them somewhere secure so I could revisit them. Stories can do that for us. They have the ability to affix an event or experience to our ego, that mediator between our conscious and unconscious minds. A thing happens and we tell someone. When we share it, the thing gains more substance, it takes on a suggestion of corporeality. Then we tell it again and again and it starts to gain mass, picking up concreteness, as it becomes a story. Maybe it’s even close to what actually happened. Or maybe not. Either way, for me it has more chance of not disappearing in the vast ocean of forgotten memories.
Many of the things that become artifacts making up my remembered life don’t feel like moments of importance or significance. A psychoanalyst might beg to differ (but that’s another story). We all have “aha!” moments, when something clicks for us, perhaps we learn something new or understand something in a different or deeper way. I usually forget those, too. But I had one experience that made such a huge impact on me it feels like a defining incident. At the time I didn’t say to myself, Memorize this moment. But I have. And I’ve told and retold the story many times.
When I was first writing my novel, Repairing the World, I was in an MFA program at The New School in New York City. It was the final semester and we’d been paired with thesis advisors. My thesis advisor was an editorial director at a big publishing house and her own novel had just hit the New York Times Bestseller list. That is to say, she knew how to write. I had submitted my beginning chapters to her to take a look at.
I’d written, “She grabbed Ruby by her shoulders, and they slowly and carefully wobbled their way over the tree bridge into the Preserve—Ruby leading, Daisy bringing up the rear.”
It wasn’t terrible writing. Her input though was, “Can we get more about how they feel when they’re doing this? What they’re thinking? What they’re touching. What they’re saying? This is feeling a bit more telling than it should for a moment like this. I want to be grounded in the characters and their world.” And then, she gave me an example of what she meant.
“Daisy grabbed Ruby by her shoulders, her fingers pressing into her friend’s soft gray t-shirt. She took a deep breath. This was not something she was used to doing. This was scary. “Are you okay?” she asked Ruby. “I’m…good,” Ruby answered, her voice not quite as strong as usual. The two of them slowly and carefully wobbled their way together into the Preserve.”
“her fingers pressing into her friend’s soft gray t-shirt”
The words, “her fingers pressing into her friend’s soft gray t-shirt” have been reverberating in my brain ever since I read the comment in Track Changes. When the novel was published the t-shirt had changed to green, but imagining the softness of that cotton underneath my main character’s fingers as she held onto her best friend’s shoulders taught me the power of sensory details in writing. The act of breathing, the feeling of being off balance, the strength of one’s voice, what we feel beneath our fingertips. The words “her fingers pressing into her friend’s soft gray t-shirt” changed the way I write, re-cast who I am as a writer, informed how I teach other people the craft of writing.
I imagine that input had been a throw-away for my thesis advisor, that she quickly dashed off the example of what she meant. I’ve thanked her many times over the years, by email, on social media, in the acknowledgements section of my novel. Because, that one piece of feedback on my manuscript, with its example, changed me. There’s the writer I was before reading the note. There’s how I’ve written ever since and the writer that I am now.
The sieve of my memory has let so many moments in my life through its fine mesh, washed away, perhaps forever. When I see beauty or grace, experience deep emotions or feel awe, I will always say to myself I will surely remember this and then more often than not I will probably forget. I’m grateful though, for the things that have been caught to remember, that have become the stories that make up my life.