Short Stories, Long Odds

The other day, Diana turned to me while we were both working in the office - hers, an early draft of a term paper; mine, some risk analyst thing or another about bridges and tunnels - and she said “Did you know that we don’t really remember things as they happened?”

“What?” I said, half stirring from a rather large PDF about House appropriations for transit security. “What do you mean?”

“Instead of remembering things as they actually happened, as in actually remembering the event, we remember the last time we remembered it instead. Every time we remember something we’re drawing a new construction of it based on the last construction we drew of it the last time we remembered it.”

This idea sort of freaked me out, even though it made perfect sense, given what I know about semiotics and phenomenology and what not. I said something witty, like “You are blowing my mind,” and then we went about our business.

Earlier tonight, I was letting Molly and Brutus out for the evening constitutional and I hung around on the porch while they did their business. The smell of the summer night struck me and it made the summer nights of my teenage years come rushing back, the way smells can invoke strong associations with some sort of weird olfactory magic.

I realized that I haven’t sat outside even once on a summer night this year, and I further realized that by last year’s September I felt like I had missed out on summer. It seems like I’ve spent the last several years with my head buried in a monitor or a book and that some truly important moments - like a warm summer breeze that breaks up a cool night, which you are sitting out in for no better reason than that you are able to - have passed me by.

So, as a 29 year old guy with sudden interests in things like golf and Better Living Through Living Better, I’m planning on enjoying more summer nights. Now I just have to figure out if the way I remember them will balance out to the way they are.