Well hello there -
There is good energy in the air, good feelings in my bones, and in imagined futures I hope to see in reality later this year. With so much eagerness and curiosity about what will be, it is no coincidence the past has been lingering, making itself known in the present more than usual, asking me to look, to think, to remember.
Memory is strange. Last week while cleaning out my inbox, a ritual I do each morning after reading the paper but before going to work, I found a tab in my email titled “Notes.” Within it were drafts upon drafts of my writings from the Notes app on my phone. Confused as to why they were stored in my email, and eager to feel clean, organized, and without clutter, I deleted each draft in one click, selecting all the notes and dragging them to the trash bin. Little did I know this action would delete each note stored on my phone’s Notes app as well, erasing every written message dating back to 2015. I did not realize this stupid yet somehow egregious mistake until hours later when I went searching for my Art/Literature/Film note I created for when I stumble upon something of interest, a running tab of culture I hope to consume. When I opened the app, it was entirely blank, not a single thought etched into the digital pages, my history of words gone.
Like most in a moment of panic, I began researching online, using key searches much too specific in an attempt to reverse the very peculiar actions I had done. After reading multiple online queries and speaking to several bots from Google and customer service representatives from Apple, I discovered I would have to mend my error manually, clicking and dragging each note from the trash bin back to the notes tab – twelve thousand, one hundred and seventy-seven notes to be exact. After work on that wretched day, I spent my evening clicking and dragging, listening to jazz music with a lit candle and sparkling water, reading notes that were almost lost forever, bringing them back to life with every drag and drop.
What I found was mostly what you would expect to find in one’s Notes app – long forgotten grocery lists and random names next to telephone numbers with far away area codes. Book titles and soup recipes from years in the past, notes written back and forth during math class in high school, and links to Airbnb’s in the South of France. Movie recommendations, Apple ID passwords, and ACT scores. Dimensions for an Ikea desk, miles driven in the family suburban to bill my old boss, drafts of school papers, and song ideas. Quotes from articles and books read for college courses, email drafts, to-do lists, and daily schedules with reminders. Links to articles on veganism, fake ID information, and ideas about I magazine I wanted to create in September of 2016.
Silly things, minor moments, unnecessary clutter, but undeniably me. Memories from my life, pieces of the mundane I somehow knew I needed to hold onto. The two hours it took to regain access to each note felt like the most productive use of my time. My body and mind knew of nothing better to do, sacrificing my evening to save what, on the surface, seemed deeply inconsequential. But why? Why did I care so much? Why did I know I needed to save these notes?
Memory is a funny thing, an undeniable force greatly feared because of its fleeting nature, a force that made me sit and hope that what I had lost could be found again. Because in truth, the notes I deleted would be gone forever, there would be no way for me to begin rewriting. I tried. Before finding a way to recover all of the notes, I thought I could rewrite them, starting with the Art/Literature/Film note. After approximately four seconds, I knew the task was impossible. My brain held no capacity to replicate what was. That is why memory is scary. A moment that in its inception requires all of one’s thought and energy, the writing of a new song, for example, can turn into something I cannot even recall a single lyric from. Yet even with the knowledge that these memories, because they cannot be remembered, should somehow indicate their lack of importance, that notion inevitably worked on the contrary in my mind. It is indeed the small moments, the ideas and thoughts and curiosities never shared, the snapshots of our mind in a given moment from our lives, that mean something.
In the search for my old notes, I began to realize that what we may hold dearest are not necessarily the stories we tell at dinner parties or moments we post on Instagram. The moments that matter, the things we work to hold onto, are the tiny ones in between, the human moments of normality, the memories of who we once were, what we used to eat, what we thought, desired, imagined, and believed in. Moments that, without notes, we would have no record of, yet because they are there, somehow reveal all we need to know. Those are the memories we fight most to keep alive.
For now, I am engrossed in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Finding Me by Viola Davis, and Family Meal by Bryan Washington. Not washing my jeans, burnt English muffins with peanut butter, layers of face cream, damp January, and my grandfather’s yellow scarf. Making plans - and putting them in my calendar, sweating, singing, Saturday mornings in solitude, and thank you notes by typewriter. My cowboy hat and boots, portable incense holders, silk sleeping masks, waterproof shower notes, and 100% wool anything. “White Horse” by Chris Stapleton, “Astronaut” by Griff, and Nick Parker’s “Winter Portraits.”
That is all for now.
Until soon,
C
xx
