Accurate Memories?

I have been reading "The Almost Sisters" and, as always, I try to relate what I am reading to 'real life,' such as it is.

The chapter I read yesterday during my usual hour awake after my middle-of-the-night bathroom run made me think a little.

In that chapter Rachel was accusing Leia of basing the main character in her super-hero comic strip on her life.  She cited the similarities in the appearance of Violet to her own physical traits, the use of the name "Violet" after she had shared that she wanted to use that name if she ever had a daughter (so she named her daughter Lavender instead), and how some of the events in Violet's story mirrored those in Rachel's life.  

During the discussion it was mentioned that while Rachel called Leia's mother "Mom," Leia always called her step-father "Keith" because Rachel had bitten her when she called him "Dad" when they were children.  

In both cases neither 'sister' remembered the events in the same way.

This made me think not only about childhood memories, but about how we interpret daily interactions and events.

As Greta and I were cleaning out the house in Wooster, we came across many items, pictures, snippets of clothes or saved cards that triggered various memories.  Some of them one of us could picture vividly while the other had no recollection at all.  Living on 62 and moving to Mt. Vernon were two times when my memories were a little sharper than Greta's because I was 12 when we moved while she was just 8.

Shifting to other realms.....the classroom.  Often I have spoken to former students who might mention in the conversation something that happened or that was said during a class or in a student-teacher conference that I cannot recall at all.  For instance while we were on the cruise two weeks ago Mike mentioned something to Nick about the distress of having his brother date his English teacher and said that he must have been a challenge in the classroom. Actually the only thing I really remember about having Mike as an 8th grade student is that he constantly played with his ink pen, one of those that you pushed the top button and it clicked because of the spring inside.  One day he was repeatedly clicking, even after being told to stop, and the pen shot into the air and stuck in the ceiling.  The class erupted and Mike was in trouble.  He has no recollection of that instance.  None.

Which brings me to this.   All of us have outside influences, experiences, and emotions which affect not only our interpretations of events, conversations, and interactions but also what we remember of those.  I remember being so excited with the copy of the movie of Ordinary People that I could show my students in my novels class.  But I had forgotten that one of my students had lost his sister in a car accident the previous spring and watching the movie triggered so many emotions for him that he had to leave the room.  I never hear the title of the book or movie (not that it pops up too much now!) or hear the student's family name that I don't think about how insensitive I was to his memories as I planned that unit of study for the class.  He may (or may not---who knows) not ever hear my name either without thinking of how he felt, trapped in a classroom being forced to watch a movie about one's sibling dying and the after effects of emotions. 

I have also wondered about how I can recall in detail what I did yesterday, what foods I ate, conversations I had, and what we watched on television.  But I know that next month I will not remember too much of the day except that Cooper was here and we went to Whistle Stop for lunch, then to the bank to see Aunt Karen - if I remember that!

And since I am writing this at nearly 3:00 a.m. my mind is sufficiently tired, and I can try this thing called sleep once again............