The inviolable past

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
 Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (translation: Edward FitzGerald)

In remembering every day of my life, it is an advantage that past days are inviolable: nothing can be changed of a day lived.

It strikes me from time to time running back through the memory tags that now fill nearly a month and a half of my mental calendar that those tags will remain until the day I die. 

I can expand on the image to remember other things that happened that day. I can reinterprete the experiences. The past can guide my future actions. But the day is done and cannot be undone.

This makes the process of remembering easier, but is also a sobering reminder that the most animated of days is frozen forever as it becomes the past.

Genesis

My wife is religious and so we read a "daily bread" book most mornings, with a Bible passage and then some words of wisdom to explain and apply it.

I am no longer religious, but did read the Bible from cover to cover some years ago (how many is something to be remembered in due course). I went through a conversion experience and was later baptised. But the more I learned of the Church's teaching, the less I could accept it and eventually had to reinterprete my experiences.

Often it strikes me in the readings with my wife and listening to preachers, how the less obvious message is drawn from scripture to try and fit it to Church dogma.

So it was this morning with a reading on Genesis and the entry of sin into the Garden of Eden and the fall of mankind.

When I read this at a time of what I will call spiritual awakening, it seemed a very clear metaphor for the emergence of self awareness in the human species.

In the beginning we were unaware that we were naked and, like all other animals, not troubled by concepts of good and evil. Like the hunters and the hunted, we followed our instincts without wondering why.

At some point in the evolution of primates that led to homo sapiens, or perhaps as a result of cultural development, we became self aware. We gained knowledge that we are like others of our kind, and like those we saw die, would one day perish. Ever since, we have seeking a way to live with that knowledge and turn the curse into a blessing, by seeking after a higher purpose.

If we are inherently sinful, it is because it is the nature of life to preserve itself and that can conflict with what is good for other individuals or even wider groupings. But it does not require religion for people to do to others as they would be done by.

What is this to do with remembering? A great deal. On an individual level, my very world view has changed over time, and shaped my perceptions and actions accordingly. In my more distant past, there are not only events to recall, but a different way of thinking, of being.

More generally, how we, as people and societies, remember the past - and the stories we tell about it - influences the present and so the future.

Openings

Perhaps my ability to access past memories is improving.

The contrast between my recollection of the days were I have consciously remembered memory tags and those before I began this process is like the difference between engaging in a conversation and overhearing someone muttering.

I have images pinned to my mental calendar for the past six weeks, which I can scan back over, stopping and pulling up greater details when I want. Before the 17 December, there is fog.

I look for shapes in the fog. Lying awake last night, after waking for the toilet, and wondering whether I could be bothered to rise again to make some tea, I thought back through my calendar and was able to establish some dates for earlier memories that had been floating free. This not only pinned them down, put gave shape to the surrounding days and events.

For example, I remembered that on the 26 November, a Saturday, my wife and I had gone for breakfast by the docks close to the hotel where we were staying during a conference in a city close to my parents. We visited them afterwards and went shopping in Prentwick, where they live. The memories came flooding back. Where we had gone, where we had lunch. Being trapped in the multi-story carpark by the volume of shoppers trying to leave from Christmas shopping; going back into the shopping centre for coffee because we were going nowhere fast. Finding a place to view the cars crawling down the exit spiral ramp and deciding my mother and wife would take the bus, while my father and I returned to sit in the queue.

These memories are as vivid now as any day with a memory tag. Now the images of breakfast and waiting at the bus stop are pinned to my mental calendar. There is something satisfying in that.

I remembered too that my parents gave us some money that day to buy Christmas presents for ourselves and so it must have been the following Saturday that my wife bought some shoes for country walks, with the intention of taking one to view an art exhibition where our then landlady was showing some of her paintings. I had been wracking my brains trying to remember which particular weekend that had been. Now I have my memory tag for the 3 December.

If I can scratch an opening into the whiteness covering the blank days and make it large enough, it seem the rest of the day can gush out, perhaps even washing away some of the whiteness covering other days.

The difference remembering makes

As today is 28 January, I think back to where I was and what I was doing on 28 December.

It was the last day at my parents before heading to Newtown to move into the flat we were renting.
 My memory tag is walking with them to a café at a country park.

My father used a stick and shuffled much more than in the past. We had always been good walkers and his age was showing.

From this image, I can recall the queue in the café, busy with people still on their Christmas break. The table where we sat. The scone I cut into pieces to share as no-one else had wanted to order anything to eat when they had the chance.

Travelling on into the city to go shopping. My father going to the post office and then to take the bus home, while we continued. The books I bought. Lunch with my wife and mother.

That evening we watched an episode from a television series my mother had received on DVD as a present.

I can't remember what we ate. Details of food are generally not sticking in this process of remembering each day, but then I am making no effort to remember them.

In fact, the only effort I am making is to retain the memory tag image. From that other details flow.

But I am not like Sherlock Holmes, able to replay a scene to pluck out the smallest detail. Whether this will change as this experiment continues remains to be seen.

A further month back and 28 November is before I began this process of remembering. Yet I know it was the day we left my parents after our first visit on arriving back in the country the week before.

I know - rather than remember - that we drove back to Newtown, to the room and the suitcases that was home while flat hunting. I can picture being in that room, but it is a generalised memory, not a memory of that day from two months ago.

Back another month and my memory is more indistinct still.

On 28 October, we were somewhere in between the relatives of my wife, saying our goodbyes. I can't say where, without seeking out some physical evidence of our passage through that day.

This is a measure of the difference remembering makes to me.

A year ago today

Some dates stand out. Not in the ways that birthdays stand out. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas etc. can merge into one without a memory tag to hold on to. I find it hard to distinguish between different years, where I was, what I did, the presents given and received. 

But some dates stand out because they call across time. The event was significant and the date had to be remembered. It is a memory tag created automatically, without the effort. 

This struck me last week because the year before I was writing a professional exam. I'd had 18 January in my diary and in my mind in preparing for it. The exam - and the trip to the capital the day before to stay in a hotel - come easily to mind.

The 18th January 2011 was a Tuesday. A day earlier than this year. Which gives me a reference for every day last year: shift them back one day of the week. It works for a couple of years before that too, until the leap year trips things up.

Flip back another year and I can't remember what I was doing on 18 January 2010 (a Monday), but I can work out where I must have been. It is an interesting exercise to travel back in time, catching the flavour of mid-January for successive years, if not distinct memories. 

Jumping through the years the changes of life are more distinct. 

So many days, but such a short time ago, I was a child.

Reinforcement is key

If you want to remember things, you have to exercise your memory.

Today some thoughts on how I do so in this project to remember every day of my life.

In the morning, while making breakfast, getting ready and/or on the way to work or going out, I find a little time to recall my memory tags going back about 10 days.

I don't spend much time on each day, but bring up the image I have pinned to my mental calendar, and picture the calendar too, as that gives a feel for the day of the week.

Sometimes it takes a little effort to remember the image. Sometimes other things that happened that day come to mind first, but I seek out the image I chose, because that it what I want to reinforce. I don't think doing so makes the other memories mean any less - the memory tag is a way to access those too.

Since starting this process last month, I have often thought, "Was that really as long as a week ago! It seems like just a few days." Or, sometimes the opposite, "It seems like an age ago that we were there." Another time, I'll discuss how this is affecting me.

In the evening, when I lay down to sleep, I pin down the memory tag for that day, as described yesterday. At this time, I think back to the image for 7 days before. Then 14 days before. Then 21 days - working out the exact date if it doesn't immediately come to mind. And so on, remembering this day of the week as far as I have the memories.

On occassion, when I have the time, I run back through all the days in sequence until I started this process on 17 December.  Then I come up against the wall, when I am not really sure what I did on the 16th.

But, so far at least, it seems that this 10-day moving window is working to capture the image for each day so that moving into the mode of flipping back through the weeks, the memories are there.

If I can't quite remember what I was doing say three weeks ago, then remembering a day either side helps, or the week before.

It is early days, but I'm optimistic these images will remain for the weeks, months and years to come.

Some types of memory tags

To remember each day of my life - the aim of this project - requires developing some memory skills.

During the day there comes one or two points where it strikes me that this is how I will remember this day. This becomes my memory tag to pin to my mental calendar, which is literally a visualisation of a month-to-view calendar, as it exists on my laptop. I try to visualise the month and year at the top of the page, and pin the image to the date, usually when I am laying down to sleep. From its position on the calendar, it is becoming easier to remember quickly the day of the week for a particular date.

Any day consists of many points that could be a reference. I've selected things like:

• The weather: Tuesday 17 January was particularly cold and the river by which I ride to work was partially frozen.

• A change of scene: Saturday 14 January we went to Easton and sat in a favourite café for lunch, where I ate steak and kidney pie, and my wife had a jacket potato with cottage cheese.

• The start of a new routine: Tuesday 3 January I collected my bike from where I had left it in storage and rode home to our new flat for the first time.

• A repeat event: Tuesday 17 January was also the day I had my hair cut. Next time I have it cut, I will know how long it has been since the last time.

• Something in the news: Friday 13 January was the date several Eurozone countries had their credit ratings downgraded (so far, I've not been big on news tags, and this date is also the day we went to see a critically acclaimed exhibition, a much more cheery tag).

• Anniversaries and special days: Sunday 25 December was Christmas day - an easy one. Lots of memories come easily to mind, but my specific tag is passing the potatoes to my mother at Christmas dinner. My Christmases have merged into a common mass. I will remember where I spent this one. 

• Scheduled events: Thursday 12 January I had to travel to a meeting in the capital. My image is using one of the street hire bikes to get back to the station for my train.

• Something sad or shocking: Wednesday 11 January, someone in my office returned to work after scalding herself badly two days before - though the image is more of the welcome she received. I guess as time goes by - and looking back to fill up the calendar - there will be more significant sad events, such as deaths, accidents and illnesses.

On the last point, it is sometimes surprising how distorted time becomes regarding events that are otherwise so significant. When I last saw a brother-in-law I hadn't seen for a while, I asked after his brother who had been in a bad car accident, and been in a coma for a while. He was doing well, I was told, as the accident was four years ago. I had put it at a year or two.

There is an art to remembering and forgetting. Even since starting this process on 17 December, there have been moments of annoyance, which will probably stick in my memory. But I have decided not to make these my memory pegs.

As an example, we went to see the film The Artist on Sunday 22 January. Seeing the film with my wife is my memory peg, rather than the stupid argument we had beforehand about when was the best time to see the film. That cast a bit of a shadow over the day, but often the best way to move on is to focus on the cheerful (and apologise to each other when the heat has gone out of the argument and make up properly). Perhaps I won't forget the argument, because memory pegs are just a trigger for remembering the whole day, but it is not what I want to be the focus of that day.

If I am going to continue with this project to fill up the calendar pages in past years, there will be far more troublesome issues to learn how to deal with.

But for now, it seems to be generally best to have positive memory tags, because even on bad days there will hopefully something good to hold on to.

Early obstacles to remembering

As soon as I began this process of remembering each day of my life, my mind rebelled.

The image on my mental calendar marking the first day was of having lunch in the garden centre with my wife and friends. It was easy enough to recall as I quickly ran through the day that evening as I lay down to sleep, as I would often do.

The problem came the next day. The image pinned to 18 December was the carol singers at the market square, which easily brought back memories of the rest of that day. Remembering the image of the previous day was not hard; it was still so fresh. But it felt a bit like trying to attract the pole of a magnet with the same pole of another magnet: getting closer, pushed it away.

This happened during the first week. It was not so much that it was hard to remember, but that I didn't want to remember. Remembering three or four days of memory tags was an effort, then how much would it be when weeks and months of memories began to pile up? It was a daunting endeavour and perhaps it was better to stop, rather than fail or become increasingly obsessed with trying to remember.

Then it struck me, it was hard, because I didn't want to remember. This was a break from my usual routine. Normally the memories that stayed with me drifted into the fog of the past without me having to do anything. Trying to fix them and pin them to a date involved work.

But remembering the people with hyperthymesia, who remembered every day since they were young, I thought perhaps my brain does have this ability and it is just a case of learning how to use it. Or perhaps not learning, but allowing the skill to manifest itself.

I have been at my best acquiring new skills when I have taken the view that it is a process of discovering something I somehow already know. Like a sculptor finding a figure locked in a block of alabaster, the process involves chipping away to find the shape existing within.

As the week progressed, I would scan backwards past the images for each day when cycling to work, when lying down to sleep. Sometimes I had to pause for a moment to remember, but always found the key image. After the first week, I could look back to what I was doing the previous Saturday: having lunch in the garden centre.

And now the rewards were suddenly more significant than the effort. Days transition into each other and it can be sometimes a shock, sometimes revealing or comforting, to be aware of their passing. It was just a week ago we were in the garden centre buying Christmas gifts and now it was Christmas 'eve and they were beneath the tree at my parents' house.

In another week we had come back home, home being the flat we moved into after Christmas. Christmas was over and the decorations still in some shops seemed out of place, one still playing Christmas tunes an outrage. But flip back a week and it was Christmas 'eve. Another, and there we were, with the excitement of preparing for it.

Back beyond that week and I was struggling to remember what I had been doing. The days on my internal calendar had no images. Now over a month has gone I can tell you what I was doing on any one of those days. Some earlier memories had dates attached and I have been able to pin those images on. But otherwise, it is either a vague notion of where I was, and sometimes not even that.

This difference has provided my motivation to continue. Even my mind seems to appreciate the benefit and is no longer the obstacle that it was.

How it began

How it is going four years later: Today is February 26, 2016, over four years since I wrote the post below. Surprisingly to myself, this technique of remembering every day that passes has been sustainable. I have not lost a single day since that first memory tag of December 17, 2011. I continue to create images as described in this first post. For the techniques I have developed to remember them all, see the key posts highlighted under "about me" after you have read this post.

Ah yes. I remember it well. Except I don't. The past is a mish-mash of events, feelings, people and places. Some dates are anchors. Some years have a sense to them. But if you asked me what I was doing this day last week, or last month, I may struggle. When did we last come to this restaurant? When did we see this film? I'm searching blindly in a whiteout, hoping to find something solid - and so relieved when I do.

Then I read an article about someone with hyperthymesia. It appeared on 2 December 2011 in The Guardian (I had to look it up, because this was before). It was on the "Experience" page in the magazine and headed: "I remember every day of my life". The author, Brad Williams, opened:

"I can pick a date from the past 53 years and know instantly where I was, what happened in the news and even the day of the week. I've been able to do this since I was four. It's not a memory trick and I don't rely on mnemonics; I can just remember things from 10 years ago as easily as recalling what I had for breakfast."

Apparently there are few people who are recognised as having hyperhmesia. Some say it is torment, though Brad said: "I never feel overwhelmed with the amount of information my brain absorbs. My mind seems to be able to cope and the information is stored away neatly."

What I took from the article was the thought that perhaps my brain did have the capacity to remember. My memory was not almost full and having to let things slip to fit in something new. It was only a case of remembering.

I began on 17 December. I was late reading the article as I was having a hectic time moving city with my wife. This day I decided I would remember, and every day going forward. Brad said: "I first remember linking a date with a memory on my fourth birthday. After that, if I wanted to remember what day something happened on, I would visualise a calendar of that year and literally check it in my mind's eye."

The 17th of December was a Saturday. We met up with friends who lived where we were going to set up home; it was somewhere we had lived before. This being the lead up to Christmas, we went to an out-of-town garden centre, which had a good gift section and a café, then went on to the next town to some other shops. Sitting in the café is the image pinned to my mental calendar for that day. I don't remember the whole day like a film, but I can remember lots of the details and conversation.

Those details don't matter. What matters is I can remember what happened on 17 December. At least, what is important to me for that date. And so it goes on.

18 December: listening to the carol singers gathered by the market on a cold Sunday. That's the image on my calendar. I can tell you we went to my wife's church beforehand and returned for the carol service there, which began at 5 pm.

19 December: I took mince pies into the office where I am working, and heated them with custard for the other staff.

20 December: We left our temporary accommodation and travelled to my folks for Christmas.

21 December: We took my parents and niece into town for Christmas shopping.

Each image triggers an association with other things that happened that day. Some things I don't remember, such as what I had for breakfast and dinner. Some meals I recall. I don't remember news events, though I can tell you that it was Friday 13 January when 9 Eurozone countries were downgraded by ratings agencies. Generally my memory pegs are not news events. But they could be - they are - when I choose.

Yesterday, 22 January, my memory peg is running along the river near the flat we have moved into, reaching the footbridge for the first time - and going to see The Artist in the afternoon. That's two images I want to associate with this day. I hope to remember when I first ran to that bridge. I hope I will be able to answer the question, "Did you see the film 'The Artist'" by saying, "Yes, on the 22nd of January 2012", not just to show off this memory skill (if I can keep it up), but so that film reminds me of sitting in the crowded cinema with my wife, with aching legs.

So already there is a richness, a clarity from remembering.

It is not as easy as pinning the image to my mental calendar as a memory tag. There are some other techniques I am finding work. How well they will cope as the months pile up remains to be seen.

How the future will be influenced by a past I remember more clearly is to be discovered.

And how to fill the blanks on my calendar before I began to remember, white days that taunt me as if they were unlived, and how to pin floating memories to a time and a context, is something I want to explore.