“Lest We Forget” Part 1

In general, I have an excellent memory. As any of my friends will attest. I can bring up conversations (and context of said conversations) that occurred years ago, and recite them word for word. I attribute most of this to the fact that I have kept a detailed journal for years. Most of this stuff I would never remember, if I hadn’t written it all down. At least that’s what I think.

So when something comes along from my own life that I don’t remember – and I mean, DO NOT REMEMBER – I take note of it. It happens so rarely – but it makes me wonder: What else might be out there, in my memory banks, that still exists, obviously … but I have no access to it whatsoever?

Obviously some things are better left unremembered, and it makes sense, in an intellectual way, that you would block out unpleasant memories … but when it actually happens to you – it is an odd sensation, indeed. Where do these memories GO? Second of all, they don’t really disappear … because in one moment, they can all come flooding back … so obviously they are stored SOMEwhere!

At the end of last week, I came home to my apartment, and opened my small mailbox to see that a package had been stuffed into the tiny space, and I pulled it out, curious. Even though it’s been years since I exchanged letters with this particular human being, his handwriting was as familiar to me as my own face in the mirror. There it was. The handwriting of my first boyfriend. He’s sent me a package? Huh? We’re in contact, still, but in a reaaaallly peripheral way. We maybe exchange emails once a year, something like that. I’ve written about him a couple times here – the most obnoxious wedding ever, and the wild horses on the plains.

It was a major relationship, my first, and the break-up was a disaster for both of us. (At the time.) BUT. In the years since we broke up, what remains in my memory of this person? What is the nugget at the bottom of the sieve, so to speak? How hard we made each other laugh. It seems like, when I look back on it, all we did was laugh.

A very good friend of ours was driving down a road in our hometown, and she saw our familiar Honda Civic approaching – she knew it was us. She beeped, and waved, but we didn’t notice – and what was the fleeting glimpse of the two of us, as our cars whizzed by each other? Antonio driving, convulsed in laughter, and me, sitting in the passenger seat, head thrown back, guffawing. A brief snapshot. Even though we had some rough times, etc., I think the odds are – if you had glimpses of us, chosen at random, over the three years we were together, you would probably have seen the two of us howling with laughter.

Our senses of humor were completely in sync, and on the absurd and STUPID side (as this post will eventually reveal).

I remember one evening when the two of us were discussing, in all seriousness, how heavy the human head was. Eventually, this led to a complicated maneuver – where we would “take turns” lying on our backs across a couple of chairs, and hanging our head over the side, trying to make it heavy as possible, while the other person tried to gauge the poundage of it. “Okay, my turn. My turn.” “Is it heavy? Is it heavy?” “Wait … make your head heavier, okay? I can’t tell yet …” “Okay. Is it heavy now? Is it heavy now?” Finally – one or the other of us, realized the ridiculousness of this – and also realized how insane we would look to someone who didn’t know what the hell we were doing – and we started laughing, and then … we could. NOT. STOP.

This is just one example of many.

And so there was a package from him in my mailbox. I was fascinated. What on earth???

I opened it. A letter fell out. All it said was: “This is so fucking funny.”

The I pulled out the guts of the package: it was a teeny book, with a blue-leather cover, and a lock on it. On the cover, in gold engraving, were the words “LEST WE FORGET”. I had a strange reaction looking at this small item. I had no idea what it was. I had no clue what it was. But … it was almost like a deja vu moment … or one of those moments when, in the middle of the afternoon, you suddenly remember the dream you had the night before. Or two nights before.

Like: is this real? What IS it that I am remembering?

There was something deeply familiar about this tiny locked-diary book, and yet I didn’t know what it was.

I opened it up. It is a journal from 1929. On the inside cover is written:

“Sheila and Tonio’s Book”.

Still no real memories yet … but … something was stirring up, something was coming to the forefront …

How on earth could I have so completely forgotten this “Lest We Forget” book??

Then I started flipping through the pages, and the entire experience surrounding this book came flooding back in a rush, in one moment. We kept a list of all of our private jokes in this book. I must have bought it at a flea market or something, and he and I would religiously write down new stuff that had happened that we found funny. It was one of our rituals as a couple – completely forgotten by me until I saw that book again.

(On a side note, too: I love that Tonio’s note to me had no chit-chat, no “Dear Sheila” – just “This is so fucking funny”. ha. Some things never change.)

So I sat down, and read through all of our old jokes. Many of them are completely forgotten by me – I have no idea why we wrote them some of them down. For example this one:

“Okay, let’s do subliminal messages!” – Tonio

I am sure that “subliminal messages” was one of the games we played as a couple – but I have no idea what the rules are. Didn’t matter. I still read through all the quotes and jokes, and laughed so hard I cried.

This is a goldmine of humor. I cannot BELIEVE I didn’t remember this book. I also can’t believe that he kept it all these years. I turned the pages, and something would hit me, some quote, and the entire context would come back, and I would guffaw so loud and so hard I thought I might die.

What sheer JOY.

Tonio apparently said to me once, “Be not coy in your remembrance.” I have no idea why. But it must have been a hilarious moment. There it is in the book.

Page after page after page …

It’s a perfect symbol, in a weird way, for how memory works sometimes. The last moments of our relationship, our good-bye in the airport at San Francisco, were so painful and awful I felt like something was being amputated. It was terrible for both of us. It was over.

For a couple of years, that is how I remembered him. My last moment seeing him, the tearful good-bye, etc. I thought that that would ALWAYS be the first thing I thought of when I thought of him. (I was really young, too – so let’s factor that in. And this was my first break-up. I was a late-bloomer. I was 23 or whatever. Something like that.)

For years, too, if I had seen that Lest We Forget book – I probably would not have been able to laugh. The jokes would have seemed tragic, because of how the whole thing ended. If you would have told me, during those years: “Some day, many years from now, you are going to remember all of the jokes you guys shared … and laugh your ass off … and feel NO bittersweet pain.” I would not have believed you.

But there I was. Snorting, guffawing, wiping tears away.

It’s awesome.