30 Days (V)

A Picture of Your Favorite Memory

Memories are strange things. Last year I read a book called "The Seven Sins of Memory," about how memories are formed, developed, changed, and lost. A book full of big words. What I remember most, though, are two aspects of how we remember things (or, rather, two things that affect how we remember things). The first is transience: memories generally deteriorate over time, and the more you remember something, the more the memory changes (without the person doing the remembering even noticing, since the memory itself seems to be valid). The other has to do with how, over time, we remember good things rather than bad things (with the exception of bad memories which we relive over and over, thus engraving them into our neural pathways). This is relevant to the question at hand because if I were able to answer the question (and, to be honest, I can't; I have tons of great memories but none which stand out as, above and beyond, the best), chances are the memory relived would be so skewed and distorted from the original event that it wouldn't be true-to-life; also, as I reflect back on all my memories, I can think about "the good old days," days which seemed so full of life and happiness and good things, but in reality they had their own nightmares and hells and traumas which are so easily forgotten. Perhaps this is why the old proverb tells us not to reflect on the good old days, because they weren't as good as we think they are. 

All this aside, a picture of one of my favorite recent memories would be my birthday last year, spent in Chicago with great people: Rob, Mandy, Jessie, and Tony. We hit up museums, the ferris wheel, amazing restaurants, walked the windy city, lost ourselves in laughter and stories, and enjoyed one another's company. This is also a fond memory because at the time, I was in an emotional hell over a girl I loved but whom didn't love me back (such is life, as the French say). Here is my favorite picture from that excursion, taken around 11:00 at night in a lonely park in the middle of the city. We were entirely alone and I even peed in a fountain. Here it is: