You and I

By Jessica Lake

NOTE: In this text, “You” refers to the reader with episodic memory, and “I” to myself with only semantic memory. I have never had a memory, let alone relived one. I am told the vividness of memories varies greatly. If I oversell your memories, please forgive the excess.

What is a life without its story?

I am told most folks muse about the past by reliving a memory. Say you step into a summer day. You are ten years old, feet pumping your trusty bike. The adult sees the world through ten-year-old eyes. You feel the bump-bump of the road home. You hear the huff and puff of each breath. You’re hungry and thinking, “What’s for lunch?”

Over a lifetime, memories like these stack up like pages in a book. You’re writing your autobiography year after year. This is your Life Story, and that is what makes you who you are.

Blah! Blah!

It ain’t necessarily so.

Well, not for me.

I inhabit a moment.

And it’s gone.

Forever.

Not gone as in puff nothing, but gone as something I can relive. What sticks is what I learned that summer day—the knowledge I gained. Here’s a fun fact: my bike was red, though I have no idea how old I was.

Aren’t knowledge and memory the same thing?

You remember your life; I know mine.

I know,

“George Washington was America’s first president.”

Unfortunately, I am without memories, so my autobiography gets tossed in with knowledge.

Does the flow of time feel odd?

Suppose my doctor asks me,

“When did you have brain surgery?”

I might answer:

A few days ago?

A few weeks ago?

A few years ago?

I don’t really know.

I only know:

“Yes. I had brain surgery.”

Are you capable of loving someone?

Through the lens of knowledge:

I feel love in the present.

I feel nothing from memory.

And if we sever our bond?

My feeling fades.

Soon it is gone.

Through the lens of gender dysphoria:

My lover is my mirror.

She is me made flesh.

She is me as I should be.

She is everything I wish to be.

I adore her.

Through the lens of childhood trauma:

She will betray me.

She permits me to exist.

She gives my self-denial purpose.

I surrender to her will.

Knowing all this, still, I grasped for love, hoping it might heal me.

Here is a sad story.

Jack Knowledge and Jill Memory were very much in love.

When Jack and Jill are together, the sparks fly.

But when apart?

Jill’s love grows through their memories.

Jack doesn’t think much about Jill, but he does know he loves her.

One day Jack went out for cigarettes.

A week later he was over Jill.

Jill?

Not so much.

You think Jack is a monster.

What he gave Jill was not love.

He used her and cast her aside.

But I know Jack—and he is no liar.

What Jack feels is love.

What Jack did not know was what Jill felt.

Jack has no memory of love.

He has only the knowledge.

Without Jill present, Jack’s love fades.

What made Jack betray Jill?

Childhood trauma.

But that is another story.

What happens when everything is quiet?

Picture a quiet moment.

You sit and muse about your lover and your shared memories. Each recall rewards you with the shape and color of incomparable joy.

You smile.

Whereas in my mind, I am housecleaning. What good is an ocean of knowledge without coherence? I must put ambiguity to bed: she-said/he-said, “Is it Istanbul or Constantinople?”, “Is there a God?!”

For me, joy comes from coherence.

Nature is cruel like that.

Without memories, who can I be?

You probably won’t believe my answer.

Nor am I entirely at ease with it.

You are:

“How did I get here?”

I am:

“Is this right?”

Seems light, doesn’t it?

See it this way.

Your life is a road trip along the highways and byways of this great nation. It is the journey toward the crossroads—a place where a choice becomes real and consequential. It is the pilgrimage along dusty roads that guides you toward your decisions.

My life is exactly that.

Except I only know the choices.

Without a clue how I got there.

That explains the way I write and speak.

What’s it like to read a book?

I have been told that when you read a good book, you inhabit it. You embody the protagonist and participate in the adventure. You see faces, hear voices, feel the salt spray of the sea, and breathe the chill mountain air.

When I read the same book, invisible characters speak against a transparent background.

Everyone is telepathic.

I’m reading a western. Two cowpokes are talking.

I don’t see a room.

I don’t see faces.

I don’t see movement.

There is no space.

What I hear is a wordless exchange between telepaths.

Remember that dinner we had last year?

You are already there.

I stall.

Did we have dinner?

How many times?

A year already?

I take a leap of faith.

“Yes. It was amazing.”

He smiles.

What happened at today’s big meeting?

I answer:

“They’re going to restructure the team. It won’t work though. The balance is off.”

They look at me in anticipation.

What are they waiting for?

What did I miss?

Isn’t that everything?

They know the unsaid part is the real story.

Hey, remember me?

I see someone in the checkout line. She smiles like she knows me. I should recognize her.

But I don’t.

Without context, I am hopeless.

She digs the hole deeper:

“You remember. We worked together for years.”

I do not recognize.

Is there a God?

Everything is quiet.

Nothing is required.

For many, this is rest.

For me, a betrayal surfaces:

How would one prove God does not exist?

I begin with what God cannot be.

Not a book of rules.

All good.

Both good and bad.

Destroyer of innocents.

Worker of miracles.

Unpredictable.

Moving in mysterious ways.

Which makes more sense?

God?

Or Lady Luck?

Please define a memory.

Someone says:

“I keep seeing my breakup with Debbie over and over again.”

For a long time, I thought that was metaphor. It was a poetic device.

Now I understand it was literal.

They actually saw her again.

They actually felt her again.

How splendidly demonic.

Is humor weird as well?

Someone makes a joke.

It’s not the story that lands.

It’s the break.

Two things that should not fit suddenly do.

Or two things that should fit suddenly do not.

A contradiction resolved in a surprising way.

These are what I call thoughts. Sometimes they are humorous. Sometimes they are merely true. The idea is to compress something vast into a single sentence or a few words.

“Oxymoron: happily married.”

“I don’t let bullies get me down when they are mean to me. It’s just their nature.”

“If peace and war had a fight—who do you think would win?”

“Look, it’s the middle of the night. A stranger is in my living room. So I shot him. How was I supposed to know it was Death?”

“Debunking the Myths of Ancient Greek Gods.”

“There is only one God(s).”

“Mere memory makes you mortal. Mismemory makes you God.”

“Sinners pay no heed to Hell. But in a thankless world, the good pray for Heaven.”

“The problem with my moral compass is it only points north.”

“Since my house burnt down I’m home less.”

“I won a bet with God. Bad idea.”

“Whose side are you on anyway? Us or God’s?”

“Doing what you think is right is not the same as justice.”

“The lamest superpower? Translucent Man.”

“I can’t decide whether to waffle, dither, or vacillate.”

Closing

These are not failures of effort.

They are properties of the system.