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This week’s question comes to us from Jim Christensen:

Do you have any tricks for forgetting? I wish there were as many for forgetting as there are for remembering. How do you forget?

Ooof. Genetically, forgetting is something I’ll never have to worry about. It just happens.

One of my oldest memories is of my grandmother at the window. Waiting for me. The window was on the second floor. It had shutters. It was the window to her living room. She was waiting for my grandfather to bring me home from the airport. His car turned the corner to her street, and I saw her face light up. She started waving. I rolled my window down and waved back.

From her side, I imagine that she looked at her watch and estimated that we were about to pull up. There were no cell phones then. And my grandparents didn’t call. They estimated, and they waited. She could’ve been at that window for an hour or more. She watched as every car approached. None of them was my grandfather’s car, until it was. Then she started waving. And I waved back.

I think I am maybe five years old in thiss memory. I have earlier memories, but some memories are anchors. This memory is an anchor. Two people have a memory of this moment, each from their own point of view. I do not know if it was an anchor moment for her, but I like to think it was. Especially because it was a scene that repeated itself almost every summer. But that memory had two keepers. Until it didn’t. My grandmother could not remember that day by the time she died. And since then I’ve been holding it down on my own because it meant the world. And I do not want the world to end.

The world ends when we forget it was there.

My daughter texted me this morning. And because of the times we live in, my immediate reaction was panic. She doesn’t usually text me in the morning. So I panicked and called her. (Calling in response to a text is a pretty good indicator that someone is panicking.) I asked her if everything was ok. She reassured me that it was, and she was just seeing if I wanted to have coffee with her. I calmed down enough to tell her that sounded nice. So she came by, and we had coffee, and then walked to the café on the corner for breakfast. It had been a while since we’d had breakfast together, and it was really nice.

As we walked back home, we had a fun conversation about movies, music, and other things. And I remember thinking to myself, this is one of those memories I want to hold onto. Just a random nice thing that happened on a Thursday morning, after it had rained last night, with the sky looking like it might rain again this afternoon. A slight breeze coming down off the hill. A spaniel tied up outside the cafe, and a neighbor coming out of the cafe and having trouble untying that spaniel while holding a cup of coffee. Me offering my daughter the bacon that came in my sandwich. I try to remember as many mundane details of moments like this, almost like those details are bungee cords that help tie that memory down. Anchored in place. Making it a little harder to eventually get stolen away.

It is easier to remember the small moments. Small moments shared by two people only have two keepers.

I believe my father lived his life with the idea, or with the hope, that he’d eventually forget everything he was inflicting on those around him. Sadly, no one affected by his actions was afforded the same grace, at least not yet. Although, the odds are that eventually we will. But for now we’re forced to carry his sins for him. Sins long-forgotten to him, if he ever considered them sins at all. My guess is he didn’t. He died without memory. Which I believe for him was a feature. Which means his sins weren’t buried with him. They linger. Until the day his victims also fade. My father was the half-life of all his sins.

I am trying to live a different life than my father lived, if only out of spite. I want to remember. When we live life in the hope that we’ll eventually forget our actions, we are less likely to tie those memories down. We are more likely to lay down and let those memories go. Or just hand them over. The forgetting becomes a blessing. A lightening of sins and pain. Memories that go in bins until time comes along and empties them.

I want forgetting to be a struggle. I want to fight losing the memory of the time my daughter texted me out of the blue and we went out for breakfast on a random Thursday. I want to fight losing the memory of my grandmother at the window. I want to fight losing the memory of coming home after a long trip and my dog going apeshit at the top of the stairs. I want to fight losing the memories of fire hydrants being cracked open on hot days, the perfect pretzel on a Philly street corner, waking up with my wife by my side, and the best game of Addams Family pinball I ever played. I want to hold onto those memories with more strength than I have. When time comes for them, I want to fuck time up.

Along with those memories are the memories of all the bad Addams Family pinball I ever played, the memories of breakups, the memories of friends driving away, the memories of rushing my daughter to the hospital after a bad fall, the memories of sitting in empty apartments, the memories of finding my mother in tears, and, of course, memories that still fill me with shame and regret. Bad memories that I’ve inflicted on others.

I shouldn’t be able to forget those, nor do I want to. Do not conflate memory with pride. To forget the bad memories makes it easier to forget the good memories. It is also dishonest. We are, in the end, rotting sacks of flesh, filled with biases, and molded not only by our actions, and the actions of others, but also by the actions we’ve inflicted on others. And if they can’t forget, it’s only fair that we can’t either.

Memories are gifts that we make for our future selves. Sometimes, if I’m having trouble making a decision, or avoiding a difficult conversation, I’ll think of what my future self will wish I’d done in that situation. It provides clarity. I want to be a good ancestor to my future self. Sitting here as my future self, I am thankful that my past self quit shitty jobs. I am thankful that my past self stopped smoking. I am thankful that my past self didn’t sell those Beastie Boys 12-inch singles. I am thankful that my past self heeded a call to adventure even though he was tired, his shoes were already off, and he was already on the couch. An actual gift. Mostly I am thankful when my past self remembers to pick up coffee on the way home, even though he’d rather just come straight home.

Sometimes it’s ok to forget. I am thankful when my past self pre-orders a book or record, I forget about it, and then a mystery package shows up at my door a few months later. I open it up, genuinely curious about what it might be. At which point a memory comes flooding back. And I am happy, not just for the book, but to be reunited with a lost memory that was just floating around, looking for a place to land.

Of course, a few days later another package shows up. The exact same size and weight. And I realize my past self forgot about pre-ordering a book or a record a little too quickly. And ordered it twice. Which means I now have a gift for a friend.

I worry that we—the big collective we—are forgetting too much already. Recent history is an ongoing seemingly inescapable trauma, and forgetting is a coping mechanism. And while I understand that we are all doing what we can to cope, I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to forget that we survived a pandemic. I don’t want to forget that millions of people did not survive a pandemic. I don’t want to forget that we elected a fascist, moved heaven and Earth to be rid of him, and then elected him again. I don’t want to forget that we threw the people who did the heaviest lifting under the bus. I don’t want to forget that they came for our neighbors, and for our families, and for our friends. I don’t want to forget what they’re doing to the people of Palestine.

I don’t want to forget that the tech oligarchs who stood by Trump’s side and pledged fealty, are the same tech oligarchs who pledged to “do better” in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, are the exact same tech oligarchs who are attempting to convince us that AI is somehow in society’s benefit, are the exact same tech oligarchs pulling their mega yacht into a city where they just laid off 1,400 people.

I don’t want to forget how many of you aided these fascists because you found a way for their fascism to benefit you as well. I will never forget those of you who looked out over all this horror and called it “an era of abundant intelligence.” I will never forget those of you who peddled away your souls to promote a machine that murders children.

I do not want to forget because memory is such a very important part of plotting revenge.

I also don’t want to forget the horrors because that opens the door to forgetting about the joy. I don’t want to forget what kindness feels like. I don’t want to forget what the faces of my neighbors look like. I don’t want to forget what thousands of people in the street, unified against ICE feel like. I don’t want to forget what it feels like to come home after a crappy day to be greeted by someone who loves you. I don’t want to forget what it feels like to have breakfast with my daughter, out of the blue, on a random Thursday morning, after it had rained last night, with the sky looking like it might rain again this afternoon. A slight breeze coming down off the hill. A spaniel tied up outside the cafe, and a neighbor coming out of the cafe and having trouble untying that spaniel while holding a cup of coffee. Me offering my daughter the bacon that came in my sandwich. I try to remember as many mundane details of moments like this, almost like those details are bungee cords that help tie that memory down.

You cannot take this memory from me. I will fight you.

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