Memories are Not Made of This: Helen Chappell

Memories Are Not Made of This!

by Helen Chappell

Dear Anne ~

I’m sorry this column is so late. I forgot I had a deadline.

Then I had an idea, and I promptly forgot that. My memory is only as good as identifying all the films Claude Rains was in.

Where that book is or whether or not I took my meds this morning, well, those memories are gone with the wind. (1939, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, written by Margaret Mitchell and out of fashion for being dated and embarrassing.)

I don’t know why I can recall the vaguest pieces of trivia, but even though I checked my balance a couple of hours ago, I couldn’t tell you for the life of me how much is in that account.

Hold on, I’ll have to look it up again. Oops, wrong password. Thought I updated that. Oh, no, the company updated it and I forgot. Let me just keep putting in my old password over and over again and hope for a different result. Now, I do recall that was Einstein’s definition of insanity, but I had to think long and hard about what my new password is. By the time I get it changed back to my original password, I’ll have forgotten both of them. But I can tell you that hamburger is on sale in two different groceries.

I’ve always been a classic absent- minded professor without the academic credits, but alas, with aging, it’s getting worse.

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Where did I put that? Why did I come into this room?

Where’s my coat? Who are these people? What year is this?

Oh, it’s funny now, but I dread waking up one morning in an episode of The Twilight Zone where those questions are real and Rod Serling is grinning at me from 50 years ago, like it’s all real.

A friend of mine says absentmindedness is not a sign you’re going into senility, at least not yet. According to her, a licensed professional, intelligent people are likely to get wrapped up in intellectualtype thoughts and forget the mundane world. They even made a movie about it!

It has been suggested to me, unkindly, that my job is thinking beautiful thoughts.

I write mysteries and stuff. Little do they know how dark my thoughts are. (Drowning victims rarely have water in their lungs. Bubonic plague wiped out twothirds of the population of Eurasia in the 13th century. Boy, I’d like to

punch that guy in the face with a banana cream pie. Yeah, beautiful thoughts.)

If I had a nickel for every time I walked into a room and couldn’t remember what I’d come in there for, I’d own a sprawling waterfront estate. Of course, that happens to everyone, doesn’t it?

Or open the refrigerator and stare blankly at the contents because you can’t remember what you were looking for?

Put your glasses down and forget where they are? (Ten points if they’re on top of your head.)

I realize these lapses happen to everyone, even people with so-

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called photographic memories, but that doesn’t make them any less annoying.

Lists help. My mother, that most organized of women, taught me early and often to make lists. Of course, sometimes I forget to make lists, and worse, sometimes I lose my list between my kitchen counter and the store. Trying to shop from memory always means I forget one key item and pick up two expensive items as an impulse buy. Sadly, switching from brick and mortar to online does nothing to fix this problem. In fact, it can make it worse.

One of the side effects of absentminded professor syndrome is my inability to recognize faces.

If I don’t see you early and often, I may not recognize you eating at the next table. Your face may be familiar, but your name and the context in which I knew you remain just out of reach. So, I have to ask some questions, fishing for your identity without insulting you or you think I’m some kind of snob or weasel or something. “How are you? What are you doing now?”

I fish desperately, looking for a clue, any clue. Please don’t take it personally. There’s actually a name for this disorder, so it’s not just me. Years of journalism have trained me to ask questions, so most of the time I can fish without offending someone. But sometimes, after promising to stay in touch and exchanging digits, I get the feeling the person I just spoke to doesn’t remember me, either...

I keep a wirebound calendar on my desk, illustrated with art I like. Every year I buy a new one, and I carefully list all my appointments and numbers and daily stuff in it. And I’ve still been known to show up on the wrong day or at the wrong time or both. The new art every year somehow makes it more bearable when I screw up an appointment.

I’ve been known to keep lists of my lists and have them trailing out of my pocketbook like bread crumbs. You can’t win sometimes, but you forget about that as soon as the next glittery event crosses your

path. Until, of course, you find a list from last year stuffed in your coat pocket.

Of course, I have Eastern Shore Alzheimer’s, so I can forget anything but a grudge. A grudge I can take up, polish, add some more unresolved issues and put back into the same velvet-lined box where I store it.

Same with a negative comment or a bad review. These will stick on me like Velcro, to be used to wound myself later.

Forget all the kindnesses and the praise and the good reviews. It’s easy to forget the good stuff unless you remind yourself to be grateful.

The thing about aging and forgetfulness is you can’t remember what happened yesterday, but your memories of your past come rushing back at you like an oncoming semi on Route 50. And they’re not always golden memories, so you have that to roll around in your head.

Between the pandemic and retiring from book writing, I’ve become a lot more absentminded. And easily distracted by anything flashy or fun or just different.

I think I’ll start making a list of things that are flashy, fun and different. They’d make good column fodder.

Anyway, that’s why this month’s column is nine days late.

I’ll try to remember to be on deadline next month.

Much love,

Helen

P.S. I’d have called you, but I forgot where I put my cell phone....

Helen Chappell is the creator of the Sam and Hollis mystery series and the Oysterback stories, as well as The Chesapeake Book of the Dead. Under her pen names, Rebecca Baldwin and Caroline Brooks, she has published a number of historical novels.