Memory

It's late. Or, I guess it's really early. I seem to be having some difficulty sleeping lately, and I remember as a child how I use to stay up all night, or I would get up extremely early to watch cartoons before my parents woke up. It's interesting to me how I can remember things like that so vividly, and yet I can barely remember to email a student 30 minutes after finishing class, or, worse yet, my mind goes completely blank mid-sentence when talking to people or teaching. So, I've been thinking a lot about memory lately, especially because over the past few months mine has been as fleeting as mist. And, I'm definately way too young to be having these types of memory problems already.

I've actually started a behemoth of a poem about memory, namely how we remember historical events and how we can create false memories and how those false memories can affect the present and the past and maybe even the future. I'm not sure that I will finish this thing before thesis defense time, but I'm hoping that the Christmas break will allow some time to work on this. (Not that I have been all that busy lately anyway but just a little frustrated with this poem and its resistance to my working more on it). But, like I said, this one is going to be big, very very big. So, hopefully I don't forget half-way through completion what I intended for this poem. Or, maybe that is exactly what I do need: to forget this poem for now. Perhaps by the time I come back to it I'll have some of my memory back. Things usually do work better if you give them time to simmer a bit without agitation, anyway. More later, I hope.

"It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases
to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates.
There is little distinct left without an effort of memory,
then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment – but who can
be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?" – Byron