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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Is it really true that those 15 years are just -- gone? Do you have any recollection, for instance, of the Lockerbie bombing?
Was that the plane that was blown up? I don't remember that. I don't remember the end of the Cold War; I don't remember the end of apartheid; I don't remember anything that happened in Bosnia and Sarajevo. This is all stuff I read about afterward.
What about the Exxon Valdez? Does that ring a bell?
[Long silence] Is that the boat that was blown up?
"On the Sea of Memory: A Journey From Forgetting to Remembering"
By Jonathan Cott
Random House
214 pages
Nonfiction
No. It was an oil tanker.
The oil tanker. That al-Qaida attacked?
No, it hit a reef. The captain was drunk. It resulted in a massive oil spill.
I read about it, but I don't remember it.
What about the Los Angeles riots?
Oh, the L.A. riots -- I remember because that was -- what year was that?
The early '90s, '92.
I'm thinking of the L.A. riots that occurred years before then. No, I don't remember those.
And Waco, Texas?
[Long silence] I read about that. That was with David Koresh? See, I don't remember those things happening, but I've read about them since then and seen reports on them on television. That's how I find out about them.
As you began to find out about all these things, was there any one event that particularly shocked or surprised you?
Well, I was overjoyed to hear about the end of apartheid. I was really upset, but more on a personal level, when I heard that Glenn Gould had died, or that John Lennon had died, or that Bob Marley had died -- people whom I cherished, poets I had admired. I found out they had died at the same time. They all died at once.
Basically a massacre.
Yes. I do have flashbulb memories of certain events. Not political events; those I don't remember at all. But like getting lost in the Sahara Desert for about 16 hours. For some reason I remember that extremely well. That wasn't erased, like the blackboard that's been erased from my life. I remember sitting in a park in Copenhagen, Denmark, one fall afternoon and feeling really, really relaxed, and I was reading a book. Of all the time I spent in Copenhagen I for some reason remember that one moment. I don't know why. The Sahara Desert I understand. I mean that situation must have really shook me up. But sitting in the park? It was just a simple, pastoral moment.
How exactly did you go about filling in the blanks?
I got ahold of old magazines, or people would tell me certain events had occurred, and then I'd go and research them. I didn't know how to work the computer, so I had to learn computers, and now I can use the Internet to figure things out. But it took me a long time to learn computers because of the cognitive failures that ECT contributes to. The treatments lowered my IQ enormously, so I'm much slower at learning things.
I also have a problem with reading. When I read a sentence, I don't remember what I've just read. So I've trained myself to do certain mental exercises to concentrate on what I'm reading, and I underline everything. I have to go back and read what I've underlined, and even then I have a hard time remembering. But I do the best I can.
I sound like a sad case, but I do have a sense of humor about myself, and that gets me through.
What about personal memories? There's no newspaper to record those.
Well, I have good friends. A friend of mine told me one story where I went through my address book after I got out of the hospital and called her up. I said, Who are you? Her name was in my address book, and I didn't know who she was. So I was calling up people to find out who they were.
Among the stories that you heard from friends, which are the ones that you most cherish?
They have to do with, one, people I was involved with, friends; and two, the places I visited, because I traveled a lot for my work, for the books and articles I wrote. Tibet, Japan, China, Ireland and Edmonton, Canada. And I was in Guadalupe, apparently. I found a T-shirt from Guadalupe that told me I had been there, although I don't remember having gone there. I use T-shirts and postcards and photographs and things like that to remind me of where I've been.
But as far as things that I've cherished ... Well, no, I can't remember. I have to have friends tell me things that have happened to me and that I must have cherished. And reexperiencing them in my imagination, I realize that I did cherish those things. It's like reconstructing something. So instead of remembering things I imagine them having happened. It's a comfort to me to be able to reenter those worlds. I don't remember them, but I can imagine having experienced them. It's an interesting exercise, to try to imagine what it would be like to have experienced something, if you don't remember it.
It happens every time you read a book.
Yes. And you know, I don't remember any of the books or movies that I read or saw during that period, so that's 15 years' worth of literature and film and even music. I look at my CD collection and I have no idea where those CDs came from. I think, Wow, how did I get that, or why did I buy this one?
