I still find, usually, when I can't bring something to mind as quickly as I would like, that telling myself "it will come to me" works. Though earlier this summer I could not for the life of me think of the name of a flower in my garden - alyssum, as it happened. The Greeks, of course, thought that forgetting was a blessing. I'm guessing my memory won't always be as sharp as it usually has been, but am hoping it will remain serviceable to the end. But who the hell knows? I will, eventually.
I remember that after his brother's death, some thought Bobby Kennedy suicidal, and he was reconciled to life partly by Jacqueline giving him the Greek classics. My work is about a people far from Greece, but with that same stolid stoicism.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the provenance of your reference to memory? Just curious.
I remember reading it in one of John Cowper Powys's later books, in which he quotes (in Greek) a saying that they had. I shall have to see if I can find it.
ReplyDeleteA little off-subject, Frank, but ... in some extreme circumstances, forgetting CAN be a blessing. As I cared for a dear, elderly friend who suffered from dementia ... how she suffered from knowing she had forgoitten something. When things deteriorated to a point where she no loger realized that she had forgotten, it WAS a blessing, for her and for all of us.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a blessing when I can't find my keys and locate them right where I left them an hour later!
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