When the mind goes blank
This memory lark can be bloody irritating.
I refer of course to the well known phenomenon in elder age of loosing the short term memory. The compensation for this is an improvement in long term memory.
There is another element to the game and that is forgetting words that I have used all my life. I start a sentence and suddenly screech to a halt because I can’t think of the next word. I know exactly what I want to say but that word will remain elusive until I substitute an alternative but unsatisfactory word, whereupon the original word will come to mind. It’s fucking irritating but luckily it doesn’t happen too often [so far?].
Short term memory loss can be a bit of a bitch. I constantly have to make notes – little reminders – and then forget where I put them. The shops down in the village are well used to me visiting them in rapid succession as I keep returning to buy something I had forgotten. My phone is cluttered up with alarms and calendar entries and they are the most used functions on the phone, just beaten into second and third place by the torch. Next down on the list is my birthday reminder. Yes, I know when my birthday is but I have listed all family members along with their ages. The one thing I rarely use on my phone is the phone.
Last night we watched a film. Within the first few minutes I knew we had seen it before but, for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was about. It was actually quite a memorable film but I’ll have for gotten about it by tomorrow. Already I have forgotten its title.
Long term memory is strange. All it takes now is a simple word, sound or smell and I can conjure up all sorts of happy memories. Last night I read a nice piece over on Fainthearted about “poached” and immediately I was transported back to fields of my youth and boots getting stuck in the mud. I could smell the grass and breathe the fresh clear air.
Now I have to think of a title for this little ramble. I try and usually fail to think up something interesting and if I do think of something that is brilliant and unique, I usually find I have used it before.
Damn!
I have just remembered.
I just have time to bring Penny for her vet’s appointment.
I very nearly forgot about it.
It’s the same with me, and I am possibly a decade younger than you, then I irretrievably lost my phone!! All those reminders and memories. I can’t remember passwords. Moreover no cloud backup as my mobile phone was never out of sight.
Mobile phones can always be found using another phone [unless it’s switched off]. I use software to carry all my passwords [encrypted] as they run into the hundreds and are impossible to remember anyway.
“All it takes now is a simple word, sound or smell and I can conjure up all sorts of happy memories”
A particular song – Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” has that effect on me. Not because it’s a particularly good song, but because it was being played to death by the Irish FM pirate stations shortly before they were outlawed. This coincided with me being on holiday in Wales during August 1987, and I found a moorland track high up above the Barmouth estuary where I spent a couple of hours with various portable radios & cassette tape recorders (remember them?), saving as many station ID’s as I could for posterity. The tapes are still in a storage case in my cupboard – I just looked at them to confirm the dates – and I must make the effort to have another listen…
“Wake me up before you go go” by Wham! Always hated it but even more so when some kids played it on the road, on a loop and very loud on a night before I had an early start next morning. That is a black memory.
selective remembering, helps to keep the blood pressure down!