Memories Are Made Of This

Yesterday I started working out on our new exercise machine.  It is a very complicated affair with so many bells and whistles that it will take me some time to work my way through the instructions and demonstrations on the accompanying chart we have hung on the wall.  But I will master it, of that I am sure.  Still I needed to email the company with a question about the detail of some one thing, and walking from the gym shed to my office to type out my question I forgot the two terms that I had read on the chart to which I would be referring.  So yet again I was paralyzed by the realization that I cannot carry such data in my head from the backyard to a room in the front of the ground  floor, maybe thirty or forty feet, and the passage of five or less minutes.  And yet without hesitation I can say 5729, the telephone number in the house where I lived the first sixteen years of my life, or I easily recall the Italian for the number of the telephone of the Roman apartment we lived in back in 1963-64.  More bizarre still is the name that sometimes pops into my head, Fuficius Fango, a common Roman soldier whom Caesar raised to the rank of senator and whom Octavian, his great nephew, made prefect of Numidia.  And Roman history is not even my field! Surprisingly enough, although I remember quite well indeed masses of detail and theories of ancient Greek literature and culture, I cannot bear to read books on the subject and recently signed off from every reviewing anything having to do with it again.  I loved it; I am what came from deep immersion, but, no, that's over.  On the other hand it surprises me how strong are the erotic memories I carry in my head, and I was amused by a friend several years ago who called me blessed for the delicious thoughts I could entertain when I was in the nursing home. And indeed I felt blessed as I was writing my memoir since they were so integral a part of the story of my life.  My husband is a patient man, but he cannot bear it when I reminisce about my childhood and siblings, having heard it all too many times in twenty five years.  He has put his past away forever.  Indeed, I find it painful, shocking, and heartbreaking that I cannot honestly recall the voice of my first wife, and only traces of her face will appear in my mind's eye.  The dearest male friend I have ever made, wonderful Ted, father, priest, uncle, everything to me, died over forty five years ago, and I have no recollection of him at all, although I strive so hard to place myself once more in those wonderful afternoons I recollect as an intellectual truth when we boozed together and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.  But I can remember the songs from those days, the lyrics and tunes of songs from the Beatles, the Supremes, the Mamas and the Poppas; I can still hear Joan Baez leading us in the front of a protest demonstration in San Francisco.  And, yes, if I try real hard I can sort of hear the band from Nick's in the Village.  It was 1944 and my sister snuck me in, a fourteen year old, and I remember their signature tune as they stood when it was time to take a break, playing their hearts out marching between the tables and out the front door.