Amnesia — Or why is my memory unreliable?
By Liz Biggs
How can a person live in one of the most amazing cities in the world for ten weeks and barely remember it? I was 21, so I can’t use youth as an excuse. Yes, there were drugs and alcohol, but not much — I was a broke college student and couldn’t afford either. I didn’t even realize I had forgotten London until my husband asked me to look into traveling there because he wants to go to Wimbledon.
Siri says human memory is designed to encode information that assists one in perpetuating their own life; it is not designed as an audio or video recorder. So, it encodes information in the ways that it does for the purpose of the survival of the individual and the species. I guess that explains it — remembering my life in London was not necessary for survival, so my brain discarded it.
But it is strange to research the top things to do in London and think, “Hmm, have I been there/done that?” Our travel agent suggested going to Windsor Castle, and a friend said the British Museum is fantastic, go to a West End show and don’t miss the Changing of the Guard. I dug out my photo album from 1984, and there are pictures of me at Windsor Castle, on a Thames River cruise, posing next to a red-coated, furry-hatted guard, as well as ticket stubs from the British Museum and “Cats” at a theatre on Drury Lane. I close my eyes and try to recall those places, but I can’t. I have a vague memory of the Guard being uncomfortable that I got so close to him. And I remember the “Cats” costumes were cool.
I remember the long weekend trips I took — to Switzerland, Paris, Amsterdam and Belgium. But is that because I took more pictures in those places? (My old camera was so rickety and bulky, I didn’t carry it around London daily. I packed it for the photo-album-worthy places only.)
Here’s what I do remember: My first week in London, I let a shaved-headed Sinead O’Conner-ish Australian girl dye my hair platinum and cut it really short — a Billy Idol-ish pixie cut. (I had never colored my hair and always wore it long.) My dorm bathroom down the hall only had two showers, and the girls were always lined up, so I needed to save time. Also, I didn’t have a converter or a blow dryer.
If I close my eyes, I can picture my London School of Economics dorm room as if I’m still there sitting at my desk — the window, always open, over my bed … the way it smelled, the sounds of the neighborhood in the mornings … the foggy, rainy days — wearing a raincoat to class every day. The cafeteria served stewed tomatoes and beans on toast for breakfast. I was so very hungry, I learned to like it. The nearest phone booth was down the street at Euston Station — I lost a lot of coins trying to call home — so I only called once.
I remember checking my mailbox in the lobby every day after class and being super excited when I got a letter from home. I met plenty of fellow students, but they all seemed to want to drink beer, eat hamburgers and smoke clove cigarettes; I wanted to go out and see bands every night. I talked the girl across the hall, Emily, into going to see the Violent Femmes, but we got followed by skinheads on the way back to the Tube station at midnight, so she unfriended me for being too adventurous. Lucky for me, the mohawked, dog-collared gay mailman became my friend and accompanied me to many cool shows. He took me to the Hippodrome, and we danced all night.
I remember my brother’s British friend, Dave Kidd, picked me up in his convertible sports car and drove me out into the beautiful countryside to his family’s home. It was the only home-made meal I had all summer, and I devoured it. I felt like Oliver Twist — “please sir, may I have some more?” We watched the 1984 Olympics on the telly, and it was strange to be cheering for the USA with a house full of passionate Britons.
I remember going to the Dom Perignon vineyard in the Champagne region of France. It was my first time tasting champagne, and it tasted like nectar of the gods. A few years later, when working for Revlon, my boss ordered 12 bottles of Dom Perignon at a client dinner and instructed me to pay/put them on my expense account. I thought I’d be fired, but miraculously I was reimbursed. I wonder if Dom Perignon still tastes as good as it did in the ’80s?
Memory is strange — so unreliable and selective. Sometimes my friends and family rib me for taking so many photos. Maybe I take them so I’ll be sure to remember. Obviously, I can’t trust my brain to do that for me. I hope I can find a way to make our trip to London memorable — without eating stewed tomatoes and beans on toast for breakfast!
