In Annailo's mind…
Isn’t it strange how some things that I didn’t plan to remember burned into my mind like tattoos? While other things that I really do try to remember disappear before growing roots in my memory?
Like how could I study German for four years, without being able to form a single sentence? Or how can I never remember the name of the Norwegian counties, even if I hear about them on daily basis? When I at the same time remember a film I saw at age five like it was yesterday. I remember it scene by scene, and how I felt when I saw it. Who I was with when I watched it, and how it changed me. But I do not remember any faces from my German class. Not one. And I spent four years with those people.
It’s like I was born with a stubborn memory with its own will. I do not, and cannot, control it. It controls me.
It controls me to a level where I failed my art-history exam. But also to a level where I remember what I got for Christmas in 1994. It was a bag. A white bag my parents gave me to carry my school-books in. Including German school-books. I can’t remember the cover on those books. But I do remember the small hearts I drew on the side of that white bag. The hearts and the rope that was hanging over my shoulder for the next two years. Then it was no longer room on the bag for more hearts. It was fully covered. And by that time, I wasn’t too fond of hearts anymore either. So I found myself another bag, but I can’t remember which one.
The smell of fresh wood reminds me of a workshop in my grandfather’s basement, where I came to stay with him after school. I remember his blue jeans, but I cannot, for the name of God, remember what I was wearing myself at that time. I do remember that pink skirt of mine, though, the one that my mother made me when I was around six. I really hated that skirt, the colour of it and how tight it felt around my waist. But I was wearing it that day I asked my grandfather not to cut down those strawberry-flowers by the red, old house. What he answered, I can’t remember. But I remember the taste of sweet strawberries on my tongue. The image of them in my hand, how the shape of them looked just like that scar on my thumb. If I close my eyes I can still feel the pain from when I got it. The scar, I mean. But don’t ask me where I got it or how it happened, because that has slipped my mind along with so many other things.
Some momories I’ve tried to erase from my mind. It’s painful to have them there, how they grow stronger from time to time and burn behind my forehead. It blinds me even. Sometimes. Other memories are made of words. Songs. Music. Playing over and over again on the inside of my ears. It doesn’t help to cover them, I have to keep listening. Sometimes it really drives me mad. Other times all I hear is silence. Like when I try to remember those German words. Ich bin. Du bist. Er… Silence.
“Listen up everybody if you wanna take a chance, just get on the floor and do the dance!” I remember that. A silly song-lyric by a boyband I once liked. In fact, I remember all 46 lyrics of theirs. And if I turn my mind upside down, it hits me that this song was the reason why I drew those hearts. Looking down on my feet I no longer remember the steps to their dance, though. Or my first shoes. Looking up again, I have no idea what shoes I’m wearing right now either. But I once had yellow shoe-laces. That I know.
Phone-numbers. Birthdays of my class-mates in second grade. The colour of Mark Knopfler’s guitar. The rhythm of an old band march. The name of an ex-boyfriend’s grandmother. All characters in NYPD Blue. What I had for dinner on September 2nd, 1987. How my brother used to call me ‘siste’ before he learned how to pronounce the R’s. The pin-code on my first cell-phone. The poem on my grandmother’s fridge. Letters. Number. Colours. I remember that.
But African geography? Beethoven’s year of birth? My first day in school? Norway’s prime minister during WW II? What I had for dinner yesterday? My grandmother’s birthday? English grammar? My current pin-code? Or something as simple as my own phone-number?
Please don’t ask…
You should remind me what I promised to do for you tomorrow. And when you do, I will probably say that my mind has been elsewhere, still in that film I finished watching only a few minutes ago. I can’t tell you what it was about, as I can’t really remember. But I will never forget how it made me feel, where I was or who I saw it with. And never will I forget how it changed me. And inspired me. Inspired to write down these things I would otherhow most likely forgotten all about.
(c) annailo.net – Do not copy in whole or in part in any form. Thank you.
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