On Keeping a Notebook
I’ve borrowed the title of an essay by Joan Didion in her Slouching Towards Bethlehem collection. While it may seem presumptuous of me, I hope it’s ok, as that essay inspired this piece.
In her essay, Ms. Didion discusses keeping a notebook or journal. One of her conclusions is that a notebook entry is a trigger for memories. She recalls various memories that popped up after reading old notebooks. That raises the question: What if you never kept a notebook? How do you recall your memories?
As I grow older I’m finding that aging is solving that problem for me. Now that I’m past eighty memories are popping into my head like spring flowers. I never had that happen when I was younger, but once I made it past 70 memories started appearing magically . And the strange thing is that the older I get the more intense and realistic these visions have become.
Let me give you an example. I’m five years old, sitting on a low wall in front of our New Jersey home. The house was built slightly above street level, so the wall separates the lawn from the sidewalk and street. It’s about the height of two stacked cinderblocks with a slab top, just right for sitting . The stones are grey, and somewhat roughly textured, while the top slabs are lighter and smooth. I don’t remember much about the house, except that it's white. I’m petting a small brown Beagle. I don’t remember the dog’s name. The main focus of this memory is the wall and the color and texture of the stones. Right now I can close my eyes and picture the scene. There’s nothing really interesting about it, and as far as I know there’s no particular reason for me to remember it. But I do.
Here’s another example, from about the same time. My father has taken me into the city to see a baseball game. It’s the Brooklyn Dodgers vs the New York Giants at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. I think the year was 1947. Heading to our seats, which were located slightly to the right of home plate, we went through a short tunnel of some sort and I saw the field. The sight took my breath away. The perfectly shaped diamond, the white bases and chalk lines, and the bright green grass all combined into something so perfect and beautiful that it stunned me. The park may have been the largest open space I’d ever seen up to that time, so maybe the spaciousness did something to my brain, but I still can picture that scene in my head today, in 3d and full color. And I get the same feeling now any time I enter a ballpark.
I have another memory from that day. I remember suggesting to my dad that the teams should both sit in the same dugout so that there would be more room for seats. I don’t remember what his response was.
The point of all this is that Ms. Didion had notebooks that could trigger her memories, while I have memories without notebooks. Perhaps I should start writing some of those memories down.