ELAYNE RIGGS:The impersistence of memory
As many readers doubtless know by now, my father recently died due to injuries he sustained in a car crash. Dad always said that Las Vegas drivers were the most dangerous in the country, and he was right. While I’d be happy to talk about Dad at length in person, I won’t take up ComicMix space by expounding on anything at length here. It’s all been too draining.
I’ve just returned to the outside world from a week spent with my mom and youngest brother at his home in NJ (not far from where Dad is buried), engaged in the Jewish tradition of "sitting shiva" where friends and relatives visit to pay their respects and remember the lost loved one.
One of those visitors was my remarkable childhood friend Rachael, whom I discuss at greater length in my personal blog. Rachael’s sharp recollection of our bygone play days highlighted my mounting frustration at a condition I’ve been noticing for awhile now — my fading memory.
My uncle analogizes what’s happening to a locked file cabinet for which I’ve misplaced the key, and I agree. The memories are stored in my brain somewhere, I’ve just temporarily lost the ability to access them. And so I’ve learned workarounds.
Take pop culture, for instance. Unless I keep meticulous records of the comics I read (which I did during my Usenet days when I reviewed lots of books each week), I don’t vote in any annual polls of the year’s best. We received our Harvey Awards nomination ballot in the mail today, which went right into the circular file. It’s not that I didn’t want to nominate folks, and it’s certainly not that there weren’t any outstanding comics and tremendous talents around last year. It’s that I wouldn’t be able to call any to my brain; nothing sticks with me. Which doesn’t really bother me — it’s not that important that I retain fiction in my head, because it still exists independently of my mind in an accessible, tangible form. I can always pick up an old book or rewatch a DVD, and if by some chance I make the time to re-experience any bit of fiction, I’ll be delighted by the details all over again.