like a scratch on a record. I even hit my head occasionally to get the needle to jump to the next place. I knew, somehow, moving forward was often the best way to remember what came before. Looking at a thing directly didn’t work. I also knew trying so hard just caused surges of stress-induced cortisol to shut down my hippocampus, sealing off access to my long-term memory. Still.
This time I was trying to think of a movie actress’s name. I came up with Mamie Van Doren. And I knew that was not who I was trying to think of. I was trying to think of another blond actress, one much more famous than Mamie Van Doren. I thought about her, this actress with the out-of-reach name, and how she was decapitated in a tragic Cadillac accident. I thought of her famous custom-made heart-shaped swimming pool. Yes, anyone would have it now, but not me. Marilyn Monroe was at the other end of the bombshell spectrum, this actress was ersatz Marilyn, and Mamie Van Doren was ersatz her, ersatz ———. I saw her face, her little nose, her chalky pink lips, her enormous breasts. (Enormous in the old way, fleshy mounds that attached to the whole chest, Anita Ekberg oceanic flesh that might drown a man, instead of the modern-style augmented, separate, too-high globes with the huge lonelyvalley between them, carved breasts that seem to exist almost in a different world from the body they are attached to. But how could I assess the pertinent advantages of real versus fake enormous breasts? Maybe men like that hard valley, maybe they like the delineated order of the implanted, artificial breast.) I could not think of her name.
My mother would get that vague, anxious look as she realized she was searching for something that wasn’t there, and then she would forget it, the forgetting, and move on. She just let things go without a fight, and then she was on to the next thing waiting to be forgotten. I could not let go. I started to talk out loud, I shouted,
What the hell is her name?
sending the now flavorless gum flying out of my mouth. I retrieved the gum with a tissue as I tried not to swerve the car. And then I began to recite the outlines of the memory as if I were pleading a case to the dementia police—I can’t be losing my memory because I can think of Mamie Van Doren, I can think of the breasts of this poor unnamed actress, I can think of her method of death, for God’s sake, I can think of a stupid movie she was in with Tom Ewell. I can think of Tom Ewell. I have, clearly, an excellent memory, it was merely a glitch. Then I tried to do some lateral move, to think of something else. But really, moving on when you were more or less still assigning a portion of your brain to this elusive memory task, it fooled no one. Ada would say,
Just look it up, Mom.
But that was easy for her and her young, elastic, fearless brain. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t look it up on the Internet Movie Database or Wikipedia or anywhere else.
Ada doesn’t understand why I need to remember every random piece of nonsense—it is almost as if she believesthe internet will be her memory. I want to warn her: I’ve been through this with photographs, it just isn’t the same as actually remembering. I see her point about cluttering your brain with easily looked-up trivia, but there are other things I need to remember. Things not found on Wikipedia. I want to remember my mother before she was sick. I want to remember what Ada smelled like when she was a baby, and I want to remember when I began to suspect things weren’t okay with Nik. I want some accounting for my own behavior, and I want the future to have some clarity. I need my memory for all of that to occur. That is why incidents like this one were so critical. If I couldn’t think, on my own, of this actress’s name, I had no hope for any of the rest of it. So I used Calm Focus (memory technique #5). I inhaled and exhaled. I was so close, I felt it, it was almost there. It was like a brain orgasm, the
This time I was trying to think of a movie actress’s name. I came up with Mamie Van Doren. And I knew that was not who I was trying to think of. I was trying to think of another blond actress, one much more famous than Mamie Van Doren. I thought about her, this actress with the out-of-reach name, and how she was decapitated in a tragic Cadillac accident. I thought of her famous custom-made heart-shaped swimming pool. Yes, anyone would have it now, but not me. Marilyn Monroe was at the other end of the bombshell spectrum, this actress was ersatz Marilyn, and Mamie Van Doren was ersatz her, ersatz ———. I saw her face, her little nose, her chalky pink lips, her enormous breasts. (Enormous in the old way, fleshy mounds that attached to the whole chest, Anita Ekberg oceanic flesh that might drown a man, instead of the modern-style augmented, separate, too-high globes with the huge lonelyvalley between them, carved breasts that seem to exist almost in a different world from the body they are attached to. But how could I assess the pertinent advantages of real versus fake enormous breasts? Maybe men like that hard valley, maybe they like the delineated order of the implanted, artificial breast.) I could not think of her name.
My mother would get that vague, anxious look as she realized she was searching for something that wasn’t there, and then she would forget it, the forgetting, and move on. She just let things go without a fight, and then she was on to the next thing waiting to be forgotten. I could not let go. I started to talk out loud, I shouted,
What the hell is her name?
sending the now flavorless gum flying out of my mouth. I retrieved the gum with a tissue as I tried not to swerve the car. And then I began to recite the outlines of the memory as if I were pleading a case to the dementia police—I can’t be losing my memory because I can think of Mamie Van Doren, I can think of the breasts of this poor unnamed actress, I can think of her method of death, for God’s sake, I can think of a stupid movie she was in with Tom Ewell. I can think of Tom Ewell. I have, clearly, an excellent memory, it was merely a glitch. Then I tried to do some lateral move, to think of something else. But really, moving on when you were more or less still assigning a portion of your brain to this elusive memory task, it fooled no one. Ada would say,
Just look it up, Mom.
But that was easy for her and her young, elastic, fearless brain. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t look it up on the Internet Movie Database or Wikipedia or anywhere else.
Ada doesn’t understand why I need to remember every random piece of nonsense—it is almost as if she believesthe internet will be her memory. I want to warn her: I’ve been through this with photographs, it just isn’t the same as actually remembering. I see her point about cluttering your brain with easily looked-up trivia, but there are other things I need to remember. Things not found on Wikipedia. I want to remember my mother before she was sick. I want to remember what Ada smelled like when she was a baby, and I want to remember when I began to suspect things weren’t okay with Nik. I want some accounting for my own behavior, and I want the future to have some clarity. I need my memory for all of that to occur. That is why incidents like this one were so critical. If I couldn’t think, on my own, of this actress’s name, I had no hope for any of the rest of it. So I used Calm Focus (memory technique #5). I inhaled and exhaled. I was so close, I felt it, it was almost there. It was like a brain orgasm, the
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