River: The Articulate Mayfly

[mdlbear]

I have occasionally remarked that I have the verbal memory of a mayfly. An articulate, but easily-distracted mayfly, at that. An incident from last May, appropriately enough, will serve to illustrate this:

Somebody, let's say "A" because names aren't important here, was crashing in our room for a few hours. She woke up briefly, listened to a phone message from, let's say "B", gave me a verbal response, and went back to sleep. A while later B showed up on IM and I attempted to deliver the message. I garbled it, substituting an approximation to an important phrase. B responded rather sharply, and fortunately used the exact wording from the original message, reminding me of the words A had actually said.

OK, so let's review: a two-sentence message, a quarter of an hour, and I couldn't remember it. If I'm reminded soon enough I may remember exact wording, and if there's a big load of emotion attached I might even remember it for a long time.

The bottom line is this: if you want me to remember something, you'll have to let me write it down. This goes for phone messages, shopping-list items, your name, anything. Even something as simple as "say hello to so-and-so for me" is more likely than not to get forgotten over the course of my drive to work.

This doesn't apply nearly as strongly to words that I first see in writing, but it is pretty specific to words, melodies (to a somewhat lesser extent) and, somewhat oddly, faces. I'll remember your face the next time I see you, but I won't remember your name unless you remind me or you're wearing a nametag (I love conventions). An hour later, I won't remember the color of your eyes even if I tried to notice and remember them while I was talking to you.

It takes listening to a song maybe a dozen times before I get to the point where I can remember even bits of it without the words in front of me, or enough of the melody to where I could sing it from a lyric sheet. Even then I'm likely to change some of the notes, or even change it from major to minor.

Three weeks ago on a drive with Colleen I came up with an analogy:

"Do you remember all the dialog of a movie the first time you see it?"

"Depends on the movie."

"Well, I never do. After I get out of the theatre I'm lucky to remember a quarter of the scenes and a dozen lines of dialog. To me, life is exactly like a movie that I'm seeing for the first time."

Some people, apparently, have extremely exact memories for conversations. They can replay them in their heads, word for word, with every nuance of tone of voice preserved, even years later. It must be a terrible burden as well as a great convenience; I imagine that it might sometimes be a comfort as well. I'll never know.

Other people may think they have an exact memory, but it plays tricks on them; Colleen is often in this category. She'll get the gist of the conversation right, but often can't (or at least doesn't try to) distinguish between what she's quoting and what she's paraphrasing. I think most people fall into this category.

Some of us, and I in particular, at least know that we can't remember words, and try to give fair warning about it. When I'm thinking about it, at least, I'll try to write things down, and when I'm trying to report a conversation I'll usually remember to wrap it in a disclaimer of some sort. If I'm in the middle of some other task, or away from something I can write on, I'll usually say something like "remind me this evening." I need to get more consistent at these; I've gotten in a lot of trouble over short but important instructions or messages that I've forgotten.

I'm sure that my lack of verbal memory is frustrating and baffling to people who have one. They simply don't understand that I can't be relied on to deliver even a simple message if I don't have paper handy or if I'm in the middle of some other task.

 

In addition to having a poor memory for spoken words, I have a very bad memory for people. That is to say, although I can often remember either a name or a face when I see it, I can only rarely remember the connection between them.

There are plenty of people on my LJ friends list who I know I added after a terrific conversation at a con; I probably have no idea what we talked about, and probably don't remember your face either, unless it's on your userpic. I have a much easier time remembering a face if I've seen someone perform; I'll associate the person with the songs, especially if I've seen the lyrics before with their name attached. Even just having seen someone's username before I meet them will help.

I have a pretty good memory for processes, and for places. The morning before Baycon cflute was startled to find that I remembered, a couple of years after a visit to her house, that she prefers her bacon pan-fried rather than microwaved. That's easy. I remember how my Dad made blueberry pancakes and fried matzoh in our kitchen in Connecticut nearly fifty years ago.

 

Oddly, what little memory for words and people I do have is strongly tied to location: places and scenery. Time of day to a lesser extent. I don't remember much about the garbled phone message, but I remember the room we were in: the desk, the bed, the window. The position of my laptop on the desk as I was typing into IM.

I don't remember much of writing Rainbow's Edge, but I remember exactly where I was standing and what I was doing when I wrote the lines, "I'm standing here doing the morning chores/And trying hard not to cry." I can never remember the words, but I remember where I was standing when I sang it at Dad's memorial service; the layout of the room, and the lectern where I put the lyrics. I don't remember where anyone was sitting.

Long after I've forgotten everything we said in a conversation, I'll remember where we were sitting. Long after I've forgotten your face and the sound of your voice, I'll remember the table, the chairs, and the flavor of tea you served.

I don't remember much of the first time I made love; not her face or the color of her eyes, but I remember the woods and the sleeping bag, and the twilight. I don't remember what she said to me, but I remember the slope of the hillside and her utter surprise that she was the first. They're all tied to the place.

It works both ways. I stand by the dishwasher and remember writing "Rainbow's Edge" -- and start composing a paragraph about memory and place. I walk past a tree on my lunchtime walk and remember what Callie and I were talking about when I passed it months ago. I revisit my old college campus for a 30-year reunion, and find myself walking at the exact same pace as I did when I was a student.

 

I realized quite recently that my memory for place and process is why I use location and process-state cues for keeping track of things. I move my nose spray from one side of a certain pill bottle to the other, to remind myself whether I last took it in the morning or evening. The dishwasher stays on after it's been run, showing a "0" on its time display. I turn it off when I empty it, to remind myself whether the dishes in it are dirty or clean. I leave the lid of the rice cooker open until I've washed it.

I often find myself stopping, confused, while on my way to do something. I "launched myself" in a particular direction, with a task in mind, but got distracted somehow. I'm no longer in the place where I thought of the activity, nor in the place where I can do it; as a result, the mental trigger I need to remember it is missing. Embarrassing, but that's just the way it is.

This can happen with speaking and writing, too; I think of something I need to say to somebody, but when next I see them I'm no longer in the place where I thought of it. It sometimes takes several visits back to the place before the memory gets sufficiently solidified to travel.

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I *so* resemble that!

I'm trying to work on solutions to it, looking for what I call a "back-up brain".

[mdlbear]

I usually have business cards with me, and have taken to carrying 3x5 cards. Probably should upgrade to a PDA.

Rainbow's Edge

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you and I had used the same title! *Rainbow's Edge* is the title of my first CD (released in 2002). I ran the title past Bill Roper to see if he felt it would fly, and he didn't see a problem. I had previously used it for my Stipple-Apa zine, but there is actually a bit more meaning than that. "Rainbow" is the name of my nylon-string guitar. (I am not clear whether this guitar was with me at the one convention where you and I filked together, the 1989 worldcon in Boston; probably I had my steel-string guitar Goldilocks, which I had bought in 1975 to be more of a travel guitar.) "Rainbow's edge" is where I Scotch-tape songlists for the gig I am about to play. So using that to name a CD makes a certain degree of sense. I hope you are not offended that you and I came up independently with this title, and with any luck at all someday I will hear your song.

Regards,

Nate Bucklin

Re: Rainbow's Edge

[mdlbear]

Not offended at all, and that's a great story behind it. (You can't copyright a title, which is a darned good thing for us filkers. Somebody once suggested, when I posted my song "The River", that one could fill an entire CD with songs with that title. Probably more like a boxed set.)

I had an audio file of it sitting around in the set of scratch tracks I'd recorded for the next album; try http://steve.savitzky.net/Songs/rainbow/rainbow.mp3

Re: Rainbow's Edge

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

The amusement will keep on coming, then, and it is better thus. I, too, have a song called "The River," and it is very derivative, but not derivative of other songs called "The River." The first line is ripped off from "I'm going down the road feeling bad," and the first verse is like this:

The river may be muddy, but it's deep
It's been days since I've been warm enough to sleep
She's packed up and out of town
With a friend who let me down
I've been lying 'round the house, feeling cheap....

(Yeah, add me to the list of people who thought they could handle open relationships, and then found it was a whole lot harder than they had thought. That is what the song is about. I don't think it's anywhere on the Internet, and I'm not set up to add it, but I'll send you lyrics if you'd like. I was certainly moved by your own "The River." And one of the best rock concerts I have ever attended was Bruce Springsteen on his "The River" tour.

Nate

Re: Rainbow's Edge

[mdlbear]

I'd be *very* interested.

Hard but rewarding, when it works.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I often find myself stopping, confused, while on my way to do something. I "launched myself" in a particular direction, with a task in mind, but got distracted somehow. I'm no longer in the place where I thought of the activity, nor in the place where I can do it; as a result, the mental trigger I need to remember it is missing. Embarrassing, but that's just the way it is.

This happens to me too. I'll have walked all the way around the house, through kitchen, dining room, livingroom into the bedroom, and I'll stand there, wondering what I came for. Sometimes I can remember by going back to the place I started. Sometimes not. It's worth a try.

Also for short term memory I have a *much* better memory for a phone number if I say it aloud to myself when I look at it, than if I just look at it. I don't remember what I saw, I remember what I heard myself say.

[mdlbear]

Repeating things out loud helps a lot if I remember to do it; I usually forget. I vividly remember a woman I met on a walk a couple of years ago: she used my name many times as we were talking, and remembered it for years. I don't remember hers.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Some of this is very like me, especially the difficulty in getting names and faces set well into memory. Recognizing acquaintances out of context is hard too.

Other things, like putting a pill bottle to one side or the other because that will convey information to me, are quite alien--I'm way too right/left dyslexic for that to work. It wasn't until I learned to write that I could reliably say which hand was my right hand, and I still have to stop and imagine a writing implement in my hand, and then mentally shift gears while keeping that carefully in mind to be sure I don't flip the two. Even deosil and widdershins can flip on me.

I always repeat telephone numbers back to someone after I've written them; I place literal or imaginary dots under each digit as I do so, thus forcing myself to repeat them back in the same order I wrote them. Otherwise I could switch two numbers or do something like write 553 for 533, and never know why the number doesn't work later.

Now, I'm good with Windward and leeward. When there's a wind. Assuming I'm outside to feel it. But it's nice to have a way to express directionality that doesn't trip me up!

[mdlbear]

I'm pretty good with left and right these days; I've improved considerably over the years, possibly due to the wedding ring.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

One of my tricks with numbers (although I like yours too) is to read the entire string off backwards to check. Works best when I'm writing something down that someone else already has written down in front of them. I think partially that makes me go just slower enough, and partially I'm less likely to transpose in the same place...

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

*shudder* Although logically I can imagine this could work (I can write backward and forward with either hand, and read upside down) my inner sense is quite certain that I would make more mistakes this way.

Of course, I was copying phone numbers the other day from a phone book that was oriented upside down to me, and I was focused so hard that I kept saying "hush" to Angel, because simply listening to what she was saying while doing that was too hard...

Hmm...part of remembering a number said aloud is the "music" of the syllables. Maybe that's why the thought of saying them backward seems so wrong to me...

I'll stick to the dot-under-each-digit method.

[mdlbear]

For anything longer than four digits I'll use a finger (or my text editor's cursor) as a marker; phone numbers break down into 3-3-4 so I don't usually lose track. I also slow down a lot when reading something back or spelling something out.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Usually I use this when we're copying down something, like a computer serial number, or whatever, where one person is in an awkward position and the other is writing. The one will be reading groups of 2 or 3 numbers (sometimes with letters), and the other will be writing them. Going backward, to doublecheck (note, I do NOT do this when we're writing it down the first time) we're forced to slow down and take it on character at a time.

Thought of this today, when I was going through about 2.5 million lines of a report, and I noted the line number where _something_ happened 196391 -- and then I went to a different location to figure out what page that was on, but the stuff on that line ... looked wrong. So I tried again. 136961. *sigh*

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I have a different mode I operate in, when I remember "the words themselves" as the Irish put it. I can do it, but you absorb and play back differently. That's the best I can summarize. It's like the way I can still, if called upon, deliver not just my own lines from our high school version of "Madwoman of Chaillot," but everyone else's as well, as well as the edited version we did as Reader's Theater. I can play back epic poetry.

But then there's the RAM memory stuff... I can't tell you where I parked the car at work, this morning, sometimes. I have to really reach for what day of the week it is. Names? Oh come on, names aren't like something that matters to the brain. They really need a concept to go with a person, like my friend whose nickname is "Juan Who Burns Tent," and that's for people who were there when it happened.

And I look at stuff I've written as having been done by elves and gnomes who take over my terminal (originally my typewriter) and write things for me. Heck, if I'm really deep into fiction, I just go off into a dream state, and hallucinate being there, and somehow words appear from somewhere. People tell me I wrote them. I'm not sure I did. Channeled them, maybe. They left a visual/sensory/emotional memory of passing through, but not as representations in conceptual media form (words, hieroglyphics, whatever). Sometimes, I'm surprised to find a story that I have no recollection of writing. It passes away, forgotten like a dream, once it has taken form.

I think there's how people assume humans process information, and how it really happens. It's a lot more complex in the last context.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Much, if not all, of what you said could be used to describe me.

Sometimes I'll remember exact words (or at least know that someone who claims to be quoting isn't) because I had an emotional response to a word used, and the "quote" doesn't give me the same. I probably couldn't have quoted a single sentence 5 minutes later.

[mdlbear]

*nod* Or if someone else had an emotional reaction to something I said, and I have to go back and make sure they heard me correctly. If it's still in short-term memory I can usually dig it out. After that, it's gone.