The Struggle to Remember
There’s currently a cruel though amusing T-shirt you can buy with a tongue-in-cheek slogan which goes something like
‘Help for Alzheimer’s Sufferers!
When do We Want it?
Want What?’
Some of us have reached the age where this is not quite as funny as it should be. My wife Wendy and I have this struggle with names every night now when watching TV, and it’s getting worse. We had a Scottish bank manager in Grimsby called Mr. Craigon, who would call us frequently when he had one of those regular panic moments about our failing accounts. In his Caledonian burr, he would always ask “What’re you going t’do?” The actor Bill Paterson’s voice over on a recent documentary brought Mr. Craigon back, but could we recall his name? No. It took us four days until yesterday, Wendy’s voice rang out from the kitchen “Mister Craigon!” The relief was palpable – almost as great as every time I remember the most elusive name in my own lexicon of forgetfulness – Gil Scott-Heron.
When I was in my late teens and early 20s I played in various R&B bands and never seemed to have any difficulty remembering lyrics. Yet when I returned to playing music in recent years, for some unaccountable reason I felt naked without a music stand on stage displaying a song book. Why? Perhaps we’re like computers after all; our hard drive’s gigabytes have been exceeded and there’s no more room for the old files. Without a portable hard drive for the old stuff, we’ve had it as far as memory goes.
Nietzsche said that "The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.” I’m beginning to wonder if he was right or wrong. So, I’ve set myself some challenges to try and establish if, as I approach 70, my brain cells have finally begun to rot away. I’ve selected a few songs, I’m trying to remember the chords on the guitar, and going through the lyrics several time a day. Yet that didn’t seem to be too promising. So the best thing is to probably select something you think you know, something truly emotional and meaningful, and that must mean Shakespeare. However, the Bard did say "Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that is gone". Well, Bill, that’s fine as it stands but it’s the heaviness of a bad memory which is currently getting me down, so thanks for all the fine words and I hope I can get the following off pat so that I can stand in the rain, Withnail-style, and in tearful solace, quote the following:
Hamlet, Act II, scene 2, Hamlet is speaking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
"I have of late--but wherefore I know not--
lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises;
and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man!
how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty!
in form and moving how express and admirable!
in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!
the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
If this works, I’ll have a crack at the Scottish Play. I can already quote big chunks of Moby Dick, so there must be a few spare files on the old database left. Then again, there’s no guitar chords to remember…
