Whimfield

All Alone in the Moonlight

Posted on 25. Jun, 2008 by Laura-Jane - Whimfield in House, Personal

« Previous Post Next Post »

Today was the hottest day we’ve experienced during our time here on Prince Edward Island, and we spent a lot of time cutting gyproc outside in short-sleeved shirts.

In the sun we reminisced about our winter here and the frozen-to-the-bone era that nearly broke us. Memories are so bizarre; did we really spend twelve hours a day shivering inside this unheated house in minus sixteen weather? Honestly, it all seems like a strange vague past that could have happened to someone else.

Between 2000 and 2005 I kept a detailed ‘blog about my daily life, and this record of my existence was very important to me. It still is. Memories are really all we have. If we didn’t have them our experiences would be without meaning; what would be the purpose of, well, anything if we were to completely forget it once it had happened?

I recently came across a term-paper from my university days (”Meiji’s Commitment to Modernization: The Iwakura Mission”), and I cannot believe that I wrote the darn thing; somehow, I wrote seventeen pages about something I know now nothing about? Apparently the paper had something to do with Japan, but that’s about all I can tell you. And I got an A+!?

My first kiss in the eighth grade–I can think of some possibilities, but I can’t quite remember who it was with. I remember that I gained twenty pounds during high school, but I can never figure out what grade I was in when it happened. I know that I loved the book Jude the Obscure and I read it with vigour, but I can’t quite remember what it was about. Why did I want to major in Political Science again?

The most frustrating thing of all is that in ten years time I will be hard-pressed to remember this entire summer: “Um, Cameron and I were renovating a house that we bought on PEI. That was a good summer. I think.” Four months reduced to vague recollections of hair-styles and locations and generalities! This, I can’t stand. Every day we have billions of thoughts and worries and ideas and by the next day they have just blurred together into a seething mass of unrecognizable nothingness!

The fact that memories fade is primarily why I can’t stop writing in the way that I do. Somehow, keeping a record helps to reassure me that I will remember each day–the good and bad–and that challenges are worth taking. Otherwise, I might just sit on the couch all day and watch game shows. (Who am I kidding. I would do that anyway. If we had a TV. Or a couch.)

« Previous Post Next Post »