I remember … ah. I need to hold a pen and write this on tree pulp. Tap-tapping on a keyboard is so different. I can type my words, and I can even love doing that. But I have to know where I’m going. Pen and paper are for play. I like to explore when I can write in the middle of the page without hitting a bunch of enters and centering the font. I can break the line mid-sentence and not get a green squiggly line to distract me from what my insides want to say.

I remember … a helluva lot of this pointless writing. This scooping and shoveling. This warming up. Play. It’s like a sandbox. Scooping. Shoveling. Or a litter box.

I remember… grammar rules really well. It makes me a good proofreader.

I have a crazy good memory. I can recall a great amount of detail. If you ask me where something I own came from, I can probably tell you. In the used bookstore, I can be wandering the aisles and then remember a book I wanted to look for. Except I can’t quite remember the title, or more importantly, the author. Usually, usually, if I wander the aisles long enough, I can tug at the edges gently and stubbornly, and I can drag that memory up. I can find the name.

I wonder sometimes if anyone will wander the aisles of Half-Price Books and try to recall my name. “Ok. It’s something with an M.”

I have this great memory, so when someone tells me a story I don’t remember, it makes me feel really crazy. Like, I must have blacked out and been overtaken by an alternative personality, like in Fight Club. How else can there be this black hole in my memory? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

They say that writers live things twice. You have to live it first, notice all the details. Remember how you feel, the way the colors dance in the wind. Then you get home, and you relive the whole thing, channeling it through your fingers onto the page.

I think that’s part of why I remember things so well. Not necessarily because I write every event of my life. But I replay scenes. I live a lot in my memory.

When I’ve wondered if there’s a limit to memory capacity, like a hard drive with limited ROM, I have kind of freaked out. Because what if that means I won’t remember any more?