Yearbooks

There are certain memories that I can't remember. Others that stand out, I suppose they made an impact or whatever. I once read that it's easier to remember negative experiences because of where they're stored in our brain. The positive ones are stored in deeper recesses of the memory or something. At the time I remember thinking it seemed to explain why it's so easy to dwell on things. It seems fitting somehow I can't remember every detail of why it's hard to remember. Someone somewhere can find the meaning behind that. I'm too tired right now.




I still remember my first year after high school, auditioning for scholarships at Willamette. For whatever reason, I wanted to go to that college so bad. I don't even remember why, now. I guess because their music program was one of the best in the state. I got in and even got decent scholarships in the music and theatre departments. And there were two professors who stood out to me from that audition. One was this guy who ended up being a sort of mentor to me the short time I was there. The campus had this little coffee shop where he met me and admitted he'd known a student in the past who had taken both music and theatre scholarships. And that in truth, it was nearly impossible to keep up with the work load and requirements of both. I still remember when I told him I'd decided to go home. There was this other professor who after my initial audition, I remember came up to me so eager and excited to meet me. You know those times when you meet someone who is genuinely taken with you? For whatever reason, either your beauty or your talent or your intellect or whatever it is, they just admire you. It's like, they're taking you all in and you can see it reflected in how they look at you that they can see you, in this way most people never will. Anyway, maybe it was the first time I'd felt that regarding my acting, I don't know. Maybe that's how she was with everyone and I didn't stick around long enough to see it. But as Chance would have it, a couple years later I wound up in that same professor's class. A theatre course at PSU and I couldn't believe it, that here was this same professor who had left such a lasting impression on me, that I had seemed to also impact in some way. And after one of the first classes I talked to her and sure enough she had taught at Willamette. And she had the blankest stare as she looked into my face. She had no idea who I was. Even when I explained how I'd met her, she simply didn't remember.



It's funny, isn't it? How brief and fleeting our experiences are with one another? And not just for those memorable moments you later discover were moot but even the relationships we build with our friends and our loves and the changes that dissolve imperceptibly.

And it almost seems like there isn't even time to mourn all the losses because by the time you realize they're gone, you no longer even have enough feelings stored toward them to care. You noticed not, so how can you feel a loss that passed unoticed? And if you try to grasp onto remorse, 'tis feigned and the falsity stings worse than the indifference. So where to put it. File under anger for the lack of loving attention affection inverse to self involvement. Or sadness for maybe what never was or is or 'twill ever be again if were. Or action to change how people act and think and judge and perceive us not. Or just....some other file. One .....nothing else even lies in. Because there aren't even words to categorize it. Except to say grey. And hollow. The absence of some presence that seemed once to be. Something. Whatever it was. But the memories, so mixed and forgotten, fall between the links, between the positive and negative memories. Into those moments where you start to speak.....and pause.....because you all of a sudden forgot what you were.....



About.