Margaritas and Burritos in the Upper, Upper, Upper West Side

Later on I headed way away from my hosts' Brooklyn to northerly Harlem/Washington Heights for a party thrown by two lovely ladies (and one gentleman) also from my college years. It was a party complete (as is their way) with scrumptious, fresh and healthy food…and margaritas. Rice, beans, freshly chopped cilantro (I did that!), lettuce, tomatoes etc for a make-your-own-burrito-conga-line of epic proportions. I knew a total of three/four people there. The first three, obviously, were my hosts and then a guy from college who I hadn't had reason to remember since, well, I graduated from college lo these many five years ago.

Which brings me to an interesting thought. I've had a few phone conversations/in person conversations in the last few months in which I will mention some memory involving some person and my listener will go 'huh, I forgot that person existed'. And I rarely have that exact kind of reaction. If I ever knew someone existed I'll always know they existed. I won't necessarily remember every interaction I had with them, their face or where they sat in freshmen whatever 101 but if, for some reason, a person's name is brought up I automatically can go 'ah yes, somewhere in my brain I knew they existed'. Is that any different? Perhaps in the sentiment. That the people who declare they've forgotten a person entirely say it with a modicum of relief that they forgot or pride at recognizing the insignificance this newly brought up person on their lives. Or maybe it's without an edge: I forgot because it didn't factor into my memory's landscape. But a landscape is necessarily with it's own shadows and gullies. Every (relatively traditional…no Salvador Dali in this analogy) painting or photograph (or etching, lithograph and charcoal for that matter) has an earth from which all other things come. You see the grass on the hill, the trees in the forest but not necessarily the root work, or even just the dirt…just below the surface.

My point being is that just because you never think about the person doesn't mean you don't have a tiny file, a subfolder if you will, somewhere in your brain. Because if you forgot they existed, well, you wouldn't be able to remember then once they were brought up. Though, perhaps, there are people who have melted away forever from me…kids I knew for two weeks in summer camp for example. I can remember the names of, maybe, two girls in my cabin from one year of summer camp…but we were not a cabin of three but ten. But then I can remember girls from those years (about four of them) without their names. I'd like to call them all either Laura or Jenny. The story of the girl whose parents signed her up for the entire summer while they gallivanted around, not writing her letters or visiting…her father came once to visit and brought with him a tiny grain of rice floating inside a small glass tube, filled with water. On the grain was his daughter's name. I remember that gift not being enough for this girl. I'm sure there are people I've forgotten. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous. It is just that these names are never brought up because any link to them, a childhood friend, a parent of a fellow elementary school classmate, no longer exist to me.