I know it was I who put it there because the other person who lives here doesn’t put the Saran wrap away. Nor does he use it, come to think of it.
And then there is the issue of calling all plastic wrap, Saran. This particular box isn’t Saran wrap. In fact, I don’t know the brand. I first learned it was so, and so it continues. It’s like “oleo,” I guess. I say that, too. But the good news is, I have yet to find the oleo in the cupboard where the Saran wrap belongs.
When I got into my 60s, I began to assess my forgetfulness differently. There are some certain facts: I’ve always lost my keys and my friends will tell you I rarely depart from their homes without leaving something I brought behind - my scarf, my coozie-cupped glass, the plate that came under the cookies I baked. I tell them those are markers to make sure I’ll see them again. However, I expect to hear from someone soon that I put their leftover cole slaw in the microwave when I was helping clean up after dinner.
I do find forgotten items in the microwave, by the way. The coffee I meant to reheat and drink; the four day old pasta in the cardboard box that I didn’t want to eat but was going to because I know there are starving people who would love it; the remains of the sponges I was cleaning for 1:00, but hit 10:00 by mistake. I blame these events on the microwave which is white noise to me. I never even hear the bell ding, but you’d think the smell of burning sponges would have jarred my memory.
As for forgetting names, well, I can remember those of everyone in my grammar school classes. Yet, as a high school teacher, I only remembered the names of my current students. As soon as they moved on to another level, only face recognition remained. I had a student who challenged me on this. I saw her in the hall the year after she was in my English class. We greeted each other enthusiastically and chatted for awhile (with me struggling internally to recall her name). During a pause, she said: “You don’t remember my name do you? Geez, Mrs. R. I thought I was your favorite student. I was sure of it.” I had to admit I remembered the fondness, but still couldn’t remember her name. She, literally, introduced herself and then said: “Don’t you ever forget. Every time I see you I’m going to ask you to tell me my name.” And with the persistence of a teenager, she asked me for the next three years. I rarely got it right and still fear I may run into her in town and face the question again.
Which brings me back to that face recognition thing. I had to examine how that was working for me as I got older, too. I taught thousands of high school kids and now I think I see them everywhere. I often ask people in a waiting room or at a random gathering if they went to Roswell High School. Most often they say, “No.” The ones who say “Yes,” either don’t remember me or say something to this effect: “Wow. I never would have recognized you, Mrs. R.” Once I said to a clerk who told me she was in my class 20 years before: “I’m surprised you recognized me.” She said: “Well I didn’t. I mean, you’ve changed a lot. I just saw your name on your credit card.”
Oh.
Well the truth is, I can’t remember who I am when I look in a mirror or catch my reflection in the glass window of a department store. The age my mind plays out is this strange eternal 35 and sometimes I’m right there. These days I talk to young mothers at the playground while I push my granddaughter on a swing. They tell me their “mom war stories” and then I tell them mine, the ones that took place more than 30 years ago; but I hear myself as the young mother who was telling the same stories at similar swings then.
Time has a funny way of traveling lately. This new little toddler of my blood is a clone to her mother, my own little girl. In whole spates of time, my granddaughter takes me back to where I once was and I feel my feet bridging two worlds. I wipe a sticky hand, hit my head on a playhouse door, or spend an hour on my stomach coloring with a two year old towhead. In these moments, there is no then and now.
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a novel of wonder and whimsy:
DON'T YA KNOW
available in ebook and paperback
mid-May, 2015
Read about it at: www.suzannerosenwasser.com
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