Back again

We came to my wife's country for Christmas and will be staying for a few months.

These times of relocation are when I really appreciate being able to remember where I was for every day of the past two years.

As we return to familiar places and meet up with family and friends for the first time since our last visit, I have a sense of continuation. In conversation I can answer the questions, "When were we last here?", "When did we last meet?"

I've noted before how time away seems to vanish with a change in location. I spent 7 months in my country this year - and when I was there I felt I was home and had been on a trip.

Now I have the same feeling back in my wife's country.

But the fact I periodically refresh the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags means the time elsewhere does not disappear into a fog.

The long view

Now that I am embarking on my third year of remembering every day that passes, I can take advantage of a rather pleasing phenomena: I know exactly where I was and what I was doing on the same date one and two years ago.

Today is Sunday 22nd December 2013.

A year ago, I know the date was a day earlier. On Saturday 22nd December 2012, I was at a family gathering.

Two years earlier and the date was two days earlier, 2012 being a leap year, giving me Thursday 22 December 2011. In any case, the image pinned to my mental calendar tells me it was a Thursday. I am in a café with my wife and niece having lunch on a Christmas shopping trip. I remember I will leave them to go and see a podiatrist and collect them later.

From time to time I've tried to remember the same dates going back through the years. Now I have two definite points of reference for past years, I'm motivated to try to make this a more routine part of my reviews to see what happens. Even if I cannot find images for specific dates, it would be nice to have images for the each month - or even just the year.

Early on in this process, I switched from remembering from the present to the past, to the other way around. In my current review process, I start 6 months ago and pass a two-day window over each week, moving towards the present. In my longer term review, I start in January 2011 and remember a day per month moving forward to the present.

So yesterday I thought I would try to remember every December from the year of my birth to the present. I did not get far. Firstly, I had to scale back my ambition to remembering something specific to the year. I have memories from before I began going to school. School years are marked by different classes and teachers.

My pre-school memories are few, but I could read before I started school, so I tried to find memories of learning to read. This theme opened a rich vein. It brought to mind early books and comments, and later, favourite authors and trips to towns where I visited book shops, sometimes with my father as my mother looked at other things.

None of these memories are attached to dates and it is difficult to identify even a particular year.

I began this process after reading of people with hyperthymesia, who can remember every day from their early childhood.

I had a happy childhood and have been very fortunate with life as a whole, but some negative experiences of bullying when a child and drug use and breakdown when a young adult, have overshadowed much of these decades, such that they feel locked behind frosted glass. When those times passed and I made peace with myself, I have been in such a rush to make the most of life, that living in the moment has overshadowed the past. I've rarely looked back.

Having found so much positive in being able to remember every day of the past two years, I wonder how things would have been different had I began this process earlier. I suspect the perspective would have been a great help: I would have remembered most of my days were happy as I lived them and had a greater sense of self when under attack. Although my demons have long been laid to rest, it may be I can break through the frosted glass by putting days in their proper place now.

Why bother? Well, firstly this is an experiment and I want to see what happens. Secondly, my parents are now old in years and as I feel increasingly they will need my help, it is good to be reminded that they are not weak, but coped with raising a family, with raising me, and with all that life threw at them.

Year three begins

It was two years ago that I began this process of remembering every day that passes.

As I enter the third year, I see no reason to stop. The process I have developed is manageable and rewarding. Sustainable. At least for now. Perhaps there will come a time when I have to change the review process that I find essential not to lose days, but not yet.

Various postings on this blog record the benefits I find from this process. They go beyond being able to remember where I was on any day and the corollory of being able to remember when I visited a particular place or when something happened during this period.

I have a fresh perspective on time, one that continues to develop.

Recently my mother has started to lose her short-term memory. She repeats the same stories and questions. When I last saw her she kept commenting that time seems to speed up as you age and asking if I find the same.

Not as such. Not any more.

I know how long a year is. I hold every day of the last two years in my mind.

A year is a long time. That's 365 or 366 memory tags to remember for each year, pinned to my mental calendar. Remembering this sequence of 731 days using the techniques I have developed is not difficult, even though it is a lot of days lived.

When I choose the image to pin to my mental calendar to represent that day in my life, I decide the events, people and feelings encompassed in the image that I will remember forever. I don't consciously try to capture every moment of every day, just the memory tags, which then serve as a portal I can drop through to recall so much more about the day, building and branching from the reference point I carry with me.

There are transitions between places and experiences in the sequence of days. The first three quarters of 2012 was basically a happy time, one of the happiest years I have spent. And then a young relative was diagnosed with cancer. The last 14 months of memories contain the last days I spent with this relative, the periods I was away from my wife when I had to work in my country and she was visiting hers to give support. Receiving the news of my relative's death is a memory tag I would rather not have.

I am grateful that the memories of the days spent together have not become one indistinguishable mass: I remember when and where we went out for a family breakfast or lunch. At least during this period. Looking further back, I have isolated memories with no firm date or even year attached. These are important, but they are different and bring home to me the difference between passively remembering something that happened and actively choosing to remember, to store and retain a memory for future retrieval.

Memories change with distance in a quite peculiar way, I have found. Like all the days of the past two years, I have revisited 17 December 2011 at regular intervals in the reviews that refresh the images. That day has gone from being yesterday to being two years ago. In the memory tag, my wife and I are having lunch with a pregnant friend and her husband. Their daughter is now someone we have come to know. She is there in a set of images pinned to my mental calendar from the day we received the news she had been born. I have the day I first saw her and images of her changing from a perpetually sleeping baby to an energetic toddler.

I too have changed as I have experienced new things, one of them being this process of remembering.

In several regards this has been profound. As I have moved around a lot, between my own country and that of my wife, particularly in the last 14 months, I am reminded in my reviews of where I have been and that those places continue, with the people I love still in them. While I still try to live in the moment, behind my eyes I carry the world with me and in each review return to the places I have been.

The places I will go in the future seem a little different too. I have always been well organised when it comes to transitions and travel - and so generally taken them in my stride and been relaxed about them. Visualising logistics, particularly during this difficult year, has had a different flavour to it, however, because events written in my diary become memory tags on my mental calendar as the future changes to past. This is not exactly unnerving, but I am struck sometimes by the illusion that I am a wavefront travelling along a pre-existing timeline.

On a more positive note, I am less inclined to worry about forthcoming events or possible problems - or at least I am able to decide the time for worrying is not now: I will face what I need to face at the appropriate time. Quite often problems fail to materialise or are resolved if they are not worried at. Or if action is required when the time comes, things may well have started to slot into place and solutions emerged from my subconscious.

Perhaps the most profound change from this process is to do with my sense of mental well-being.

While I am aware there is something obsessive about running through a selection of images each and every day, I feel this is a healthy obsession. It is based on the solid foundation of real things, real people and real events. Even though the reviews take up just a short part of my day, perhaps 20 minutes, they ground me. Outside that time, I am getting on with life and not over analysing what I am doing and how I am feeling, which I may have done in the past, particularly during stressful times.

This process provides a daily reminder of the obvious statement that nothing lasts forever.

Be it good. Be it bad. Be it time spent with loved ones.

Learning to run

I realise now that I do not even know how to run properly. I am having to learn.

Running has always been a part of my life, from my earliest memories of running around in the sun till I had heat stroke, to hating cross country at school, to becoming a regular runner for health when a student, to starting to enter races on 2 September 2012 (my memory tag for that day).

I have progressively become faster since that first race, moving up to 10 km races and running the last in 48 minutes.

But now, as I read 'The Art of Running Faster' and watch Olympic runners closely, I realise I do not know how to run properly at all.

There are moments now on training runs when I start to feel, 'This is running'.

On 14 November 2013, I went for a long run as I had received some sad news. Perhaps it was because I was meditating on this rather than thinking of running, it suddenly came together.

Instead of stretching forward in an attempt to go faster, I was pushing back against the earth. My focus was on the balls of my feet launching me forward.

As I landed with a more bent knee, I felt lower to the ground, and lowering myself further settled me more into true running.

By the end, as I neared home, my breathing was almost leisurely, but my legs were moving rapidly and stretching long behind me.

It was lack of strength in my legs that became the limiting factor, not oxygen debt. I was entering a new level of efficiency of movement, and suddenly I felt like a child again, running to see what it felt like, what my body could do, opening a door to a whole new world of possibilities.

My legs ached afterwards and the next day as muscles had been used and stretched like never before.

The point of the stretching exercises in the book suddenly became apparent, to lengthen out that movement.

Only now that I realise how little I know can I really start to learn.

My weekly runs in the park are a guage of what difference changing my running can make. Today my time for the 5 km run was not only a personal best for the course, but my fastest ever 5 km, at 21.41.

This is an amazing 30 seconds faster than my previous best.

It was a little tough going. I used a 5-step rhythmic breathing cycle for the first km (3 inhaling, 2 exhaling), then switched to 3-step (2 inhaling, 1 exhaling).

Whenever I felt I was overdoing the effort, I tried to stretch my trailing leg a little more, settle down by bend in my leading leg a little more and easing up slightly on the step rate.

I needed a minute to recover at the end, but did not feel as a bad as when I set my last PB.

Running like an Olympian

My memory tag for 9 November 2013 is getting below 23 minutes for a 5 km Saturday run in the park. It is not the fastest course as it has a couple of inclines and I've been trying for a while to bring my time below this threshold. I managed 22:55.

The book The Art of Running Faster has helped me with its tips on running with faster, such as running with faster strides, even if they are shorter. (This is an unsolicited recommendation).

I am still reading the book, but now I am trying to follow its advice to run so that my centre of gravity is above or slightly in front of my leading foot when it lands.

Today I watched the 5,000 metres at the London Olympics, won by Mo Farah of Great Britain.



I can see how the runners' feet strike the ground below their bodies and their legs extend to launch them forwards for the next foot to strike, with the knee of that leg bent.

It also struck me how high the feet of the runners rise behind them, to the level of their backsides, as they bend the knee almost fully, to bring their leg forward again. Julian Goater talks of following a cycling motion.

This slow motion film of foot strikes from a 10,000 metre olympic qualifying race show more clearly how the trailing leg fully extends to launch the runner forward.

This is far from the energy-conserving shuffle I fall into, where my mind is more on the leg traveling forward than the leg stretching behind me.



I tried it out running tonight and it felt very strange. As when I taught myself to juggle, I found it useful to concentrate on one thing at a time, in the hope that, with time, my subconscious would keep good control of the other aspects.

Doing some hill repetitions (actually over a hump-backed footbridge), I used very short steps, running on the balls of my feet to build up the muscle memory.

Running on the flat, I tried to continue that approach, landing on the balls of my feet, placing my feet underneath me.

Doing it the old way, stretching forward to connect with the ground, striking with the heel, turns my foot into a pivot I have to rise over - I am effectively braking myself with every stride.

Julian Goater speaks of falling forward and placing your foot to stop the fall, rather than reaching forward.

With my mind on the Mo Farah run, I tried to concentrate on extending my trailing leg to launch myself forward onto my other foot. This was a little difficult to do at speed, so instead of thinking of every step, I linked it to my rhythmic breathing count: two steps inhaling - "push!" - land on the other foot - one step exhaling.

This was effective, and also worked with the slower rhythm: three seps inhaling - "push!" - land on the other foot - two steps exhaling.

At other times, I tried to think of landing with the knee of my front leg bent, ready for the extension to propel me forwards.

It did not come together very well at all and my legs ached like bruised apples afterwards.

But I can reflect on the elements and try to bring them together in future runs.

Today is the first day I tried to run like Mo Farah.

Running better

My memory tag for 3 November is running a 10 km race, specifically sprinting for the finish line.

It was my third 10 km race and I knocked two minutes of my previous personal best time.

Having entered my first ever race - 5 km - on Sunday 2 September 2012 (my memory tag for that day), I have been reading about running and introducing some of the ideas into my training and racing.

Two factors led not only a faster time, but to my legs actually feeling better after the race than when I began.

The first is rhythmic breathing, which I came across in the book "Running on Air" by Budd Coates.

I link to it here on the site of the publisher, Runners World, totally independently (see my advertising policy):
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/running-air-breathing-technique

The concept is simply explained: synchronise breathing to steps. The basic rhythm is 3 steps inhaling followed by 2 steps exhaling. To go up a gear, switch to 2 steps inhaling to 1 step exhaling.

I've been experimenting with this for the past few weeks and the rhythm has started to become natural, such that no counting is involved.

The second tip I have come across in various places: more efficient running involves a fast cadence, or step rate, of about 180 steps per minute.

A fast cadence for me involves running with a shorter stride length. Maintaining a fast cadence with longer stride length means you cover a lot more ground and win races - but need to be a lot stronger than I am.

All the same, combining rhythmic breathing with fast cadence made all the difference in the race.

I was whizzing past other runners, having started near the back, but felt totally comfortable.

It struck me that as my breathing cycle was tied to my fast cadence, I was sucking in enough air not to build up an oxygen deficit.

My plan had been to run 5 km easy and then up the pace for the second 5 km, but as my time was good, I kept to the same rhythm until I reached 8 km.

Then I moved up a gear to the 3-step breathing cycle. This gave me even more oxygen and a fresh burst of speed.

When I hit the 250 metre marker, I began to sprint for the finish, switching to a 2-step cycle, one in, one out. Budd Coates says to use a 2:1:1:1 cycle, but I didn't have the concentration for that as I passed a dozen other runners in reaching the finish line.

I was breathless when I finished, but quickly recovered, without having to collapse on the ground as in some other races.

The amazing thing was the state of my legs. Usually after a race, I am incapacitated with aching joints through the following week and need a few days before I can even think of running.

I was already a little nervous about twinges in my legs after putting in a good time in a 5 km run in the park the Saturday of the preceding week and was wary of developing shin splints in my training runs before this race.

But after knocking two minutes off my 10 km time, I felt as if I had cleared my legs of the threatening ailments. I've had a rest day today, but don't feel wary of running tomorrow.

I was still 10 minutes slower than the winner in the M40 category so have a long way to improve.

But I feel I am still on the journey and have not yet arrived at my destination.

I also have a map to follow.

The happiest days of my life

Usually I select the image to pin to my mental calendar as a memory tag for the day as I lay down to sleep, adding it to the calendar at the end of a run through the images for the past month.

But there are some days when I pause and take a snapshot to capture a particular moment, thinking this is one of the happiest days of my life and this is the image that I will keep with me forever.

Invariably these are times with family and friends, perhaps sharing a meal or lying in the grass in the sun.

I regularly come across these very special images applying the refresh technique I use to reinforce the images. From them I relive not only the moment captured, the day and the people, but the feeling.

It is sustaining to be reminded of happy days and happines.

Remembering changes me

The word "remember" can mean different things.

To quote dictionary.com, it can mean: to recall to the mind by an act or effort of memory.

It can also mean: to retain in the memory.

The difference between these two concepts has struck me in what could be a sign that it is time for another transition in this process of remembering every day that passes.

My aim when I began this process was to be able to retain every day of my life in my memory so I could remember where I was, who I was with and what I was doing on any day of my life, at least from then on.

I have achieved this goal for every day since 17 December 2011 - and some of the days back to January 2011 as I have been trying to fill in the blanks on my mental calendar.

The review method I use involves regularly recalling to mind the images I have pinned to my mental calendar for each day as memory tags. I refresh these images at least once per month under the technique I am currently using.

But reviewing past memories is, to an extent, to relive the moments: every day I am reconnected to points along my inexorably growing timeline.

There are benefits from actively remembering that I have explored on this blog: from being reminded someone's birthday is approaching to being reminded of my own mortality and the finite number of days I have to come. And all levels of profundity in between.

But there is something else going on.

We all carry our pasts with us, but I actually gather mine in my arms every day through this review process.

I'm wondering what impact this is having - and whether I should continue.

In the past, whenever I've felt the desire to stop reviewing past days it has been because it is taking too long, but on each occasion I've cut the number of days in the review to make the process more manageable and been happy to continue.

My current process is manageable. As I've written here, reviews are just part of my routine and do not distract me from living in the moment.

But now I'm realising this daily reconnection to my past has an impact I don't yet understand.

Tithing

Tithing is setting aside 10% of income for the church. I don't do that, but the concept of ring-fencing some money for altruistic purposes is something I have found to be beneficial.

The image pinned to my mental calendar as a memory tag for 26 May 2013 is visiting a church my wife likes in the capital. They announced the guest preacher would actually appear in a recording of a sermon given recently at another church and would help us with our finances.


It was about giving 10% of income to the church, which seemed to be more about helping the church with its finances. The key message was to make the payment as soon as any income was received.

While churches undeniably do a lot of good work, such as in helping the homeless, reaching out to the lonely, and so on, there are other things I would not like my money to be used for, such as the attack on homosexuality. Bible teaching is often cited as justification for homophobia, while other texts are ignored, such as that banning women speaking in church, prohibiting divorce and extolling trial by ordeal to detect adultery. I am told some texts have to be seen in the context of their time, whereas others are the unchallengeable instruction of God to be followed today. Which is which seems to be the choice of the speaker.

All the same, I decided to put away 10% of income, whether from my salary, freelance work or - should it ever amount to anything - advertising income from this blog.

A substantial sum of money builds up quite quickly in this way. While this hasn't helped my finances, as making ends meet with what remains is a bigger challenge, it is satisfyingly liberating: this tithe money is for God's work, as I understand it to be.

That sometimes has involved giving the money to good causes, such as donating to aid work for Syrian refugees (a far more generous amount than I would otherwise have considered), a project I support in Africa, exceptional expenses where I have been the unfortunate victim of fate (the car breaking down) or whatever.

It is not just a saving fund as there are some things that do not feel right to pay from it, such as my forthcoming air ticket to my wife's country. That, I feel, should come from "my" money. But when she had to return suddenly due to a family illness recently and we had to buy a special ticket, my special fund could be used.

Resisting time's collapse

I realise now that I was used to time collapsing.

If I think to my childhood and our sitting around the table for Sunday lunch, I can recall very vivid images and particular incidents. But I do not remember specific days. These memories are conglomerates, one Sunday in my memory represents however many hundreds of times we sat down together.

If I think to just a few years ago, when we were in my wife's country and she was working in a particular office, I can remember making trips to collect her. But it is difficult to remember if she worked there for three months or ten. The days have merged and the time has blurred.

Since beginning this process I can remember every day of the past 22 months.

And I find there is something strange, even a little unsettling, in the fact that time has not collapsed.

As I recall having my hair cut on 21 March 2012 while waiting for my car to have a new section of exhaust fitted, I have a desire to let this memory concertina into all the other memories of having my hair cut while living in the same town. Yet, I remember as separate events every trip I have made to the barbers during this period.

As time passes my recollection does alter. There is a different flavour to the visits to past days when I refresh the images pinned to my internal calendar as memory tags. The recent past is fresher, but I am the same, my habits and concerns are unchanged. Looking further back, I can remember when those days too were as fresh, but now they have lost their freshness and the person I was then was focussed on different things.

Before I began this process, those days would have faded. Events would have merged, or been forgotten. After a while, I would be scratching my head to remember where we were living during that time, perhaps even whether we were in my country or my wife's. How long we stayed would be a mystery without looking to a calendar.

Except now I know instantly that we moved into the flat we rented on Thursday 29 December 2011 and spent a very happy time there before moving out on Thursday 27 September 2012.

That time hasn't collapsed, but every time I refresh the images for those days they are a little more distant and, while I may have changed, it seems strange that days now long gone have not faded.

Refresh technique

The technique I use for remembering every day that passes has developed since I began this process on 17 December 2011. Here I will describe my current technique for refreshing the images pinned to my mental calendar. See the post My mental calendar for details of how my calendar is arranged and the post How it began for information on how I form images.

If you are interested in trying the same process, you might like to browse through my past posts tagged How I remember to see how my technique has changed as the number of days I am dealing with has grown. These posts include further details on how I form images.

The technique I will describe here is for refreshing a selection of the images every day so I don't forget them. This technique was forced on me as my previous technique broke down because it took too long and wasn't sustainable. I have been following this new technique since 4 July 2013.

When I first wake up, I take today's date and think back to 6 months before. So today being Wednesday 23 October, I think back to 23 April, which I know - because I remember - was a Tuesday. I recall the image for that day and the following day to create a two day window that ends on the same day of the week as today. For some months, I'll have to move to the correct days in the week for this alignment.

From refreshing Wednesday 24 April, I add 6 days to give me the date Tuesday 30 April and again refresh the Tuesday and Wednesday images.

I continue this process of passing a two-day window over each week until I reach about a month ago. In this case, that brings me to Tuesday 24 September. I back up to 23 September to be on the same date as today and then refresh the images for each consecutive day until I reach today. That is, I review all of images for the past month.

In total that's around 70 images, which need only take a few minutes. It often takes longer as I like to explore the memories a little and sometimes have to scramble around to find an elusive image. There are various postings here tagged "lost images" on how I've managed to recover those that first eluded me.

That is the first phase of my review completed.

Then at some point during the day - perhaps while getting washed, cycling to work, going for run, driving or some other free mental time - I'll run through the images for the same date each month from January 2011. So in this case I begin with 23 January 2011, then move on through 23 February, 23 March and so on, right up until the present day. In some cases this will repeat some of the reviews I've already done. I've worked out a quick and easy way to orientate myself through the days in the week in this phase of the review, described here.

In this way I am refreshing one image per month for periods older than 6 months. Continuing to the present day exercises my recall muscles and helps to build associations between images for days separated by a month.

January 2011 is before I began this process of remembering every day that passes on 17 December 2011 and many days during this period have no images associated with them, so I recall the nearest. It is a habit I have got into, partly to remember what happened during 2011, and partly because the contrast with the period when I do have images for every single day is stark and helps to motivate me to continue.

This is the second phase of my review.

UPDATE 28 December 2014: I have recently modified the second phase of my review, to include two consecutive days per month, which I refresh over two days. With over three years of memory tags, this seems more manageable. More details here.

Generally, though not always, at some point during the day, I'll also think back to where I was a year ago, two years ago and sometimes back further, occasionally as far back as my early childhood. In this remembering I can only say for certain what I was doing a year ago or perhaps two, but I think it is important to remember and recall my life before I began this process of remembering every day that passes.

Finally, as I lay down to sleep I run through the images for the past month once more, adding in the image for the day just lived that will gradually become entrenched on my mental calendar as the day moves inexorably back through the weeks, months and years.

Trees

I have been using this process of remembering every day that passes to remember other key information as well, such as new people I meet, the names of friends' children and what facilities are available at different stops along the routes that I drive.

Now I'm applying it to trees.

I had a weekend away in a rural area with my wife recently. The image pinned to my mental calendar for one of the days is walking in the countryside and looking at a tree. My wife was interested to learn the name of trees and though I am no expert, knowing only half a dozen types, I explained how I had learned those I did know. The first step is to become aware of a particular type of tree. Once I had noted the tree - its leaves, its bark, its shape - I would keep an eye out for it. Sure enough, I would inevitably see it elsewhere and so build the ability to identify it as "that new tree". Then I'd look it up in a reference book to put a name to it. I've found this much more effective than studying the reference book and trying to memorise the details then spot the trees.

So for 7 October 2013 my memory tag includes this particular tree. We spotted it again on subsequent walks and were able to put a name to it as an Ash tree.

We continued to sight it and it has become a common theme of some subsequent tags, which helps me to recall those image. It is in my memory tag for 15 October, finding it on a garden walk at the place we visited with my parents for lunch. On another day out we spotted a tree with similar leaves and red berries, which features in my memory tag for 17 October. Checking the reference book, this is a Mountain Ash, or Rowan Tree.

In refreshing the memory tags I both remember the features and names of these trees, and the common theme helps me remember images for different days.

Unlost images

This process of remembering every day that passes continues to progress well.

My current review routine takes little time, even as the days pile up.

Inexorably, the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags move from being reviewed every day, to twice per week, to once per month. As ever, it is often the past few days that are the most confusing: for example, was it Monday or Tuesday I went there?

The day-per-month reviews haven't given me problems for a while now. As I switched to this review routine on 4 July, I'm now giving these days their refresh for the fourth time.

Images that have proven to be elusive in past reviews have given me no problem this time around.

Sometimes it is remembering an image was lost and how I found it again that brings it to mind. For example, the image for 12 March 2012 once eluded me. It came up again today - it being 12 October, I was reviewing the 12th of each month. But I instantly remembered how I remembered when I lost it and there it was.

This is a good sign.

Longer months

On October 1, I reviewed the images pinned to my mental calendar for the 1st day of each month since January 2011. I start the review before the date I began this process of remembering every day that passes (17 December 2011) partly because I am trying to fill in the blanks for 2011 and partly because the contrast between finding blanks and finding every day remembered helps to motivate me to continue.

When I do these reviews, I have a sense of the days surrounding the one I remember from the image. It struck me when I recalled February 1 that it had been a while since I had revisited January 31. The reason is simply because September has only 30 days, so I had missed reviewing the 31st day of each month.

I repeated the review since January 2011 recalling the images for the 31st of each month. Obviously 5 months do not have 31 days.

This threw up an interesting mathematical pattern.

I orientate myself through the days of the week by counting on the days over 28 in a month. Here's why. When February has 28 days, the corresponding dates in March fall on the same day. The dates in other months are shifted by the number of days over 28. So December 31, 2011 was a Saturday. Therefore, January 31, 2012 was three days later: a Tuesday.

There was no February 31, 2012, but if there had been it would have fallen three days later again: a Friday. As February had 29 days in 2012, March 31, 2012, would be one day later: Saturday. And, in fact, it was. I instantly know because I remember it was the day we drove home from my parents house with my nephew, to be collected by my brother the following day.

Initially it was a surprise to me that the pattern worked when stepping through non-existent days. But it holds true and makes jumping to the next month straightforward.

There was no April 31, 2012, but if there had been it would have fallen three days later in the week: Tuesday. As April has 30 days, May 31, 2012, would be two days later: Thursday. Which it was. I remember it well. I made a special trip to a shopping mall in the capital.

Unpack what is happening with the numbers and it makes sense why this works.

Days like old friends

This process of remembering every day that passes has now just become part of my life.

Without wishing to tempt fate, the routine seems sustainable. It seems a while now since I've struggled to recall the image pinned to my mental calendar as the memory tag for a day.

My more detailed reviews only cover the past 6 months - a two-day window passed over every week and every day of the past month. From January 2011, I just recall one day per month.

Calling up those more distant days less frequently means I sometimes greet them like old friends: instantly familiar, though not constantly in mind.

Lost image - 17 June 2012

It being September 17, I ran through the 17th of each month.

All was fine until I came to Sunday June 17. No image.

I knew where I was on that day: I had travelled to my parents after a conference on June 16. My wife and I returned home on June 18.

That is where I was, but I feared that the tag was something routine, like the place we had gone for lunch. If that was the case, then there was little that would trigger the recall.

I had been wondering when I would enter the next phase of this process of remembering every day that passes: dealing with blanks on my mental calendar.

As the reviews of the months from January 2011, before I began deliberately remembering memory tags, consist mainly of blanks then that is how it will be if blanks start to appear.

But I am not ready to give up yet. Exploring the images either side of the blank day gave me a lot more context and reminded me of what was going on in my life at that time and my mood. From this I knew I had seen my sister that weekend.

As the tag probably had something to do with going out for the day, I thought of the places we liked to visit. This brought up nothing.

As usual in these situations, it finally came back to me like a friend's face emerging from a crowd.

We had a barbecue at my sister's house. My memory tag was her partner playing the guitar in the garden.

So a special day. Well worth remembering.

Running diary

It was a year ago today that I spoke with a friend about my running as I had been recording my runs on an iPhone app and measuring my average pace. As a result of that conversation, I decided to follow his example and enter a timed road race. My first event is my memory tag for 2 September 2012.

As I went through the review of the images pinned to the 26th day of each month today, two things struck me. Firstly, the pleasure of knowing where I was a year ago and what I was doing. This ability is part of my reality now, but the second thing that struck me was that on 26 August 2012, I would have been hard pressed to say where I was the year before. This new reality is new.

On the subject of running, I am now regularly taking part in group runs on Saturday mornings. Although I keep a record of the road races I enter (and souvenirs such as my chest number, the flier and the results list), I haven't been noting these group runs down. I decided to start doing so as I am experimenting with running technique - last Saturday I tried increasing the number of paces per minute after reading in a magazine that the optimal rate is 180/minute, according to some. My breathing could not keep up!

I decided to go through my app history and write down all of the past runs in a little black book as well - in the same magazine a famous runner had mentioned her running diary. I devised a set of headings and pulled up the details from the app: date, distance, time, pace. I thought the pace information would be useful to see how I progressed over time.

Among the figures, the 15 July 2012 stood out as particularly slow. In an instant I knew why - that was the day I pulled a muscle in my leg. It is the memory tag for the day.

It wasn't often the case that a run was my memory tag, but as I wrote the entries, I often checked my mental calendar to recall what I had been doing on that day to place the run within it.

Names

Remembering names is one of my challenges.

And so this is information I make a point of including in some of my memory tags.

Sometimes the repetition is enough to fix a name in my mind so when I see the person again, I can use their name.

But I have had some problems with confusing certain names, such as Monica and Maura, so something more is needed.

Now, I've joined a running club. Having started entering road races nearly a year ago (my first race is the image pinned to 2 September 2012), I've grown to love running with other people. The beauty of a club run is it is not a race so it is possible to chat.

Before I began this process, it would have been a challenge to remember people's names and I would have faced many awkward moments of meeting someone I had spoken to at length some days before and being unable to remember their name.

So I've decided to remember the names of everyone I speak with by including them in my image tags, reinforcing the recall through subsequent reviews.

Other associations are helping. I ran alongside Kimberley during my first run out with the club. She was friendly - and petite. Her name made me think of Kimberley diamond mine: she is a little diamond.

I find associations with other people with the same name also helps. On another session, I chatted with Martin, the name of a family friend. The friend, now deceased, was married to Pauline. There was a Pauline at the meeting I had the day before the run, whose name I also want to remember. This link between the days also helps me to remember the tags.

Using people's names when I meet them is also key to reinforcement. It often impresses them.

Though I do have to try hard to remember their faces as well.

Children and whisky

A long time ago I read a few books by Robert Ludlum and more than once he describes his heroes meeting colleagues and impressing them by not only recalling the names of their children, but offering them their favourite brand of whisky.

I found this intimidating as it suggested that a) I should choose a particular brand of whisky to favour over all others and b) I should then stick with it so that it somehow labels me amongst my circle of business acquaintances.

Perhaps it is fiction and people don't really do this.

Whatever. I am at least including the names of people's children in this process of remembering every day that passes. I visited an old friend recently and included his three children and their names in the image that is my memory tag for the day. Every time I review it, I remember their names, so next time I see the family, I will know the children's name without having to wait for my friend to use them.

Then I met my cousin for the first time in a couple of years the other day. I remember his son's name well, but I've added the university and course he is studying as words I say when I picture the image of meeting my cousin for lunch.

I suppose if any of my friends were sophisticated enough to favour a particular choice in whisky, I could choose to remember that as well.

Lost images - 13 and 14 October 2012

Yesterday was 13 August 2013, so in my recently adopted review procedure, I ran through the 13th of each month starting with January 2011 (before I began this process of remembering every day that passes, so I don't always have images for the early months).

When I reached 13 October 2012, I drew a blank. Checking out surrounding days, 14 October was also blank. I had all the days for the rest of the month and all the other 13ths in the review.

It teased at me all day. I tried running through all Fridays and Saturdays, hoping returning to this previous review method would invoke brain muscle memory and the image for Friday would trigger recall of the Saturday 13 October image. It did not.

I explored the surrounding images in depth and they brought up other memories, including for the 13th and 14th, but these did not feel like the images I had chosen to pin to my mental calendar.

I was a little frustrated to go to sleep without resolving the issue. It was the first time this has happened. But as I would be faced with recalling 14 October in my review today, I was at least assured that I would not forget the problem and move on.

I went for a long run this morning. Partly because one was due and partly because I notice there are some days when the review process is easier and I hoped the increased flow of oxygenated blood might help. It didn't.

Memory of the days had come back to me in quite a lot of detail. I was half sure that one of these events - going into town with my sister-in-law for the first time since returning to my wife's country a week before - was my image for 13 October. I decided to select one of the key images for 14 October and turn it into my memory tag.

My blog today was to be about this story - selecting a new image because I had forgotten the original one. But travelling into work the image suddenly popped into my mind with total certainty: we had met my brother-in-law (another part of the family) for lunch.

I'm not sure why it had not come to me before. I made a point of remembering the first meeting with different relatives since returning to my wife's country and had explored whether this had been the case for 14 October without it triggering the recall.

Although I have a slight niggle about whether the image for 13 October is the one I first selected, I am back to a full set. I'm not ready to retreat to a more substantial review to refresh the images more frequently, but I am conscious that strengthening associations between successive images would be beneficial.

At the same time, being able to remember the events of a day, if not the image I had selected as a memory tag, is not a failure. I still rememered the day that passed.

Muscle memory

Recently I've only been including one day per month in my reviews for periods longer than six months ago.

This had been progressing fairly well, despite having a few days where I struggled to recall one of the images pinned to my mental calendar as a memory tag.

The same happened again when I tried to recall 12 March 2012 - I was recalling the 12th day of each month, it being 12 August 2013 today. The image for 12 March was really eluding me, despite my being able to recall the images for days either side.

I've not yet let a day pass without finally remembering every elusive image. I decided to restart the review the process, this time recalling the 10, 11 and 12 day of each month.

The missing image for 12 March 2012 came back in a flash as soon as I pulled up the image for 10 March: visiting a nearby town. The image for 12 March was finding my wife's mobile phone, which she feared she might have left in the café when we visited that town. In fact, it had fallen out of her bag in the car.

I had remembered the image for 10 March in my earlier failed attempts to trigger my memory. There was something about the quick succession of images that was important. My brain seems to have developed muscle memory of stepping from day to day on my calendar when I review every day of the past month. This is not invoked if I try to recall a day in isolation.

It may be that I should make this three-day-per-month approach the norm so the muscle memory does not fade, but at present I'll hold it in reserve as an emergency technique. I would still like to become adept at one day per month reviews. They will be far quicker.

Diary catch up

I was travelling on a train last Friday and had time to spare - not least because my reviews of images pinned to my mental calendar take so much less time.

I had brought my diary along to continue bringing it up to date. I decided at the start of this experiment that I would not write down my memory tags; I would give myself no option but to remember them.

However, my current method for refreshing the images is to review those for one day per month of the period longer than six months and I fear this may not be above and gaps may start to appear. So I decided to update my diary, not as a crutch to remembering, but as a record of my life for my future self.

My diary involves far more than the events encapsulated in the memory tags. The tags were only ever intended as a trigger for remembering the day.

That said, for some days there is nothing much of note that happened, orther than something like, "Today I ran along the canal after work and stopped half way to enjoy the sun and eat some biscuits on a bench".

Other days fill page after page with details and refelections, just as if I was writing the entry that evening.

Yet the entries I am currently writing are for August 2012, a year ago.

Head space

Now that I have drastically cut back on the number of days included in my daily reviews of the images pinned to my mental calendar, I have more time to think.

For dates older than 6 months, I've gone from recalling two days per week, to one day per month.

In the past in odd moments, I'd try to pick up where I had reached in my run through.

Now in these moments, it has struck me I completed the run through early in my day and can think about other things.

The process dominates my day less and I am able to enjoy its benefits more.

Patience is a virtue

I recently wrote about being unable to place my experience of the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun on my mental calendar. I hadn't made a point of including it as a memory tag at the time. In the end I checked the date on the internet.

The event was associated in my memory with a visit by friends - but I couldn't remember which friends. If I had waited, the half remembered clue to the date might well have materialised.

I've just had a similar experience. Yesterday I ran through the images pinned to the 8th day of each month on my mental calendar. When I do this, I generally have a sense of surrounding days, even if I don't make a point of recalling them. When I came to 8 November 2012, I felt a black hole looming for 9 November, so tried to call up the image and found none.

I continued with my run through the 8th days, thinking I didn't really need to worry about the 9th until the run through due today.

Hours later - about 6 hours, in fact - the image for 9 November 2012 popped into my head while I was doing something else. It was actually linked to the image of 8 November, the day I fixed my laptop when a spare part finally arrived. On 9 November, the image is setting up a dataprojector for my wife to watch a film with our nephew.

My mind had this pointer and others; there were images for all the other days on the calendar.

I need to trust the strength of waiting a little more.

Pit stop

I have travelled to my brother's house many times, driving the same route.

We need at least one break along the way and have several options for a pit stop.

They are much the same: service stations by the highway with a place to park up and eat and somewhere to fuel the car.

Pulling off the road, I was never quite sure which of the places I was visiting. They are so similar they tend to merge into one.

So I decided to remember them all.

Now when I make this or another journey, I include an image of the place where we stopped on my mental calendar, with the little features that distinguish one from another.

The images are included in my reviews.

Now I can put the places to their names. When the time is coming up for a stop on the journey, I can say: "This is the one with the comfy chairs, the next one in 20 minutes has the nice views."

 It's not much of a party trick, I know, but it is one of the small things I have gained from this process of remembering.

Of course, I could have just put effort into memorising all the stops along the route, but dropping information I want to remember into my memory tags is much easier.

Transit of Venus

Last year I ventured out to watch Venus transit the face of the Sun.

Recently this came to mind and I tried to place the event in time. I struggled as I had not used it in a memory tag.

But I've been able to place other events by exploring them until I find a link to something that is pinned to my mental calendar.

I remembered passing a school as I walked to the location where I could see the Sun. The school had banners outside for a fete taking place that weekend. Though the walk is vivid in my mind's eye, I cannot picture what is written on the banners. I cannot read the date off them.

However, I remember driving past that school with friends who visited shortly afterwards. I saw the banners again and people entering the fete.

But I could not remember which friends. If I could, then I would remember the weekend and so would be able to place the transit of Venus as being a few days before.

There were three pairs of friends it could have been: in May, June and July.

I talked about the transit of Venus with whoever it was as we drove down that road, but I could not remember which ones were with us, no matter how hard I tried. I had driven that road with them all.

Perhaps if I had waited, my memory would have eventually alighted on some key fact and everything would fall into place. It often does.

That would be a better end to this story.

Instead I gave up and searched the internet for the date. The transit of Venus was visible in part of the world at sunset on 5 June and elsewhere at sunrise on 6 June.

One pair of friends arrived on Friday 8 June and we drove past the school that Sunday.

I have now placed the memory of my walk to see the transit of Venus as an image on my mental calendar, pinned to the correct date.

I could add an image of discussing this with our friends. But that would feel like a created memory, not one remembered.

The lakes

In remembering the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags for every day that passes, I find it is helpful when they are related.

This is often because of life's natural progression. So on 15 June I visited the town where my bike was in storage. On 16 June I brought it back home and went for a ride (getting back in time to watch my niece play in a band - an image tied to my bike ride so I can remember this key event). On 17 June I took a long bike ride and ate lunch at a favourite restaurant.

If the image for one of those dates eludes me, the other dates not only orientate me, they remind me of my bike, which helps trigger the recall.

This is so useful, I'm investigating adding elements retrospectively to existing images in my regular reviews.

An example: my image for 27 July is joining a group run in a park. The following day, I visited my parents and we went out to a restaurant for lunch. There was no connection between these images.

Then I recalled that on the run through the park I caught a striking glimpse through a gap in the trees of a lake on which a couple of swans floated, one flapping its wings in the instant I passed.

The restaurant the following day was also by a lake.

By adding the lakes to the images for the consecutive days, I now have another aide memoire.

Another example: my tag for 20 July is another run - a five mile road race. It left my legs aching and that reminds me of pounding the road. This segues into my niece pounding on her drum kit in my memory tag for the following day, when her band was playing at a music festival.

This has great potential for helping me to remember and possibilities for fun.

A new association

A key part to this process of remembering every day that passes is the association between days.

Often when I am searching for an elusive image pinned to my mental calendar as a memory tag, it is the images pinned to surrounding days that remind me of it.

Early on in this experiment, I passed a three-day window over each week to strengthen the association between subsequent days. I reduced it to a two-day window to take less time and now I only pass it over the past 6 months of images.

For longer than 6 months ago, I recall just one day per month. So as today is 2nd August, I reviewed the 2nd of each month starting from January 2011 (before I began this process, but I have found some images for earlier months). I continued up to the present date.

It struck me that this one-day-per-month sequence is another pattern. Associations may form between the days a month apart and become another tool for remembering.

To try to strengthen the association, I run the day-per-month review to the present, through the 6 months that are reviewed in more depth.

I have struggled to recall some of the older images since I stopped reviewing them so regularly and I hope it will become easier as the new associations between days a month apart become familiar.

This is how forgetting feels

For the time more distant than six months ago, I simply recall one day per month in my daily reviews.

Both yesterday and today I drew blanks when trying to remember certain dates.

Yesterday 31 August 2012 eluded me. Today, 1 October 2012.

In both cases, I had no problem recalling the memory tags leading up to those dates. I had reviewed them recently. There was similarly no problem looking forward, except 2 October was also a blank.

I used all the techniques I've developed over the past 18 months to find the images pinned to my internal mental calendar, finally settling on not to worry; not trying too hard, but confident that at some point in the day the lost image would return.

Having a blank day niggled at me, all the same.

I was faced with the fear that the blanks would spread to make my calendar the sparsely populated patchwork of earlier years.

In both cases I was saved. The images came to me eventually.

Thinking back at spare moments to 31 August, I was convinced that it was separate from the sequence that led to it: 28 August, I first watched a television program on intermittent fasting; 29 August, I told a friend about it while meeting for a farewell drink before he went on holiday; 30 August, I tried my first fasting day. Later, 1 September my brother came to visit; 2 September we visited some places I easily recall.

In the middle a blank, like the day had not been lived.

It felt like a significant date, not some image of another run or sitting in a café. Then it came to me: it was the day our landlady came to the flat with some prospective tenants. Knowing we moved out less than a month later helped me realise.

There was a similar disconnect with the images for the beginning of October. We moved to my parents' spare room at the end of September. On 3 October I bought my wife's plane ticket home and took her to the airport on 4 October. But what had happened at the start of the week? Blank. On the first review, I let it go and continued.

Several hours later it came to me: we had visited a mall on 1 October and my father fell over. The 2 October, we visited a computer store. Again, it was logic that helped me. I imagined that we had probably been shopping to find items for our trip to my wife's country, or gone out to eat with my parents. The images came back with the familiarity of old friends.

I have yet to complete a full month of this new review procedure. As it progresses, the length of time to when I last recalled the older images will stretch to 30 days. Until recently, every image was refreshed twice every seven days.

If I get through this month without definitively losing images, and start a new cycle, perhaps a new type of familiarity will emerge from the flow of images to make the process easier and self-reinforcing.

That is my hope, for I already experienced how forgetting feels and I don't like it.

Jumping through the months

My reviews of past days are manageable again as dates more than 6 months ago drop out of my standard review process (a two-day-per-week window over the past 6 months and every day of the last month).

For these earlier months, I simply call up the image for the same date of the month as today. So after my standard review today - 29 July - I have gone through the images for the 29th of each month.

Jumping from month to month has become easier now that I have remembered the pattern: if a month has 31 days, advance the day 3 days, and so on.

So 29 July 2013 is a Monday. I know that 29 July 2012 was a day earlier, so Sunday. I know that 29 July 2011 was two days earlier, because 2012 was a leap year, and so Friday.

July has 31 days, so 29 August 2011 was 3 days later, or Monday.

August has 31 days, so 29 September 2011 was 3 days later, or Thursday.

September has 30 days, so 29 October 2011 was 2 days later, or Saturday.

October has 31 days, so 29 November 2011 was 3 days later, or Tuesday.

November has 30 days, so 29 December 2011 was 2 days later, or Thursday.

The images for these days often confirm I have landed correctly: 29 December 2011 was when we moved into the flat we rented for 9 months and I remember that it was a Thursday.

The map of my past since beginning this process is now familiar territory.

Story of the month

Recently I gave up on conducting large-scale reviews of memory tags older than six months old.

Now I just pass a two-day-per-week window over the last six months and recall the tags for every day of the past month.

For reasurance as much as anything, I recall the day of the month for each month prior to that. Today being the 23rd of July, I have pulled up the memory tags for the 23rd of each month since I began this process.

Having been following this technique for a while, I experience parallel stories spaced a month apart unfolding day by day.

Which makes the reviews of more historic times fun again, instead of burdensome.

Last year is over

My reviews of past days are much more bearable now. In fact, I only cover the past 6 months with the two-days-per-week window, so January is already dropping out of these reviews.

The year 2012 is over. I think I was wanting to let it go. There were many great things that happened last year, some not so great, but being half way into 2013, this is where my head needs to be. Time to move on.

I still dip into the images pinned to my mental calendar as memory tags, recalling the same date for each month (the 20th today, for example).

As I reassure myself the images are not lost, I become more confident that regular reviews are no longer necessary and can concentrate on the present in the knowledge the past is not forgotten.

Review burnout - I can't do it any more

Suddenly I have had to stop. Or at least scale back my reviews.

I have been running a two-week window over every week of the past two years to review the images pinned to my mental calendar, then every day of the past month.

Some times I did not complete the review and so the next day ran a three-day window to make sure images had their refresh. I was scared I would start losing them otherwise.

The two-year period stretched back before 17 December 2011, when I started this process of remembering, and there are many blanks prior to that date. I wanted to become accustomed to days dropping out of the reviews before the precious images from 17 December 2011 onwards were put at risk.

But I burned out yesterday. Two years is too much.

I had fallen asleep the day before without completing and was faced with three-day reviews.

I just couldn't get going. No energy. I skated over the surface of my mental calendar unable to engage with the images.

I compromised and began the process in January this year. That was not only comfortable, but gives all the positive benefits I have been writing about. I'm not stopping, but adapting.

Without regular reviews, memory tags for the whole of 2012 are at risk.

I've restarted my diary, which takes time, because it is not just the tags, but all the key things they conjure up I want to write into my narrative. Now I have a sense of urgency to catch up so if I lose what I had, I will be able to find myself on paper.

Today, I continued with this strategy, covering only this year in my review.

With free time on a bike ride, I did go back through the 6th of every month. Everything was still there.

The experiment of whether the memories are now entrenched and will remain without regular reviews begins now.

Remembering the time that passed

I had a long drive today and decided to fill some of the time with a continuous review of the images I have pinned to my internal calendar to remember every day that passes.

A quick run through the whole lot from 17 December 2011 when I began this process. I led into this starting two years ago and recalling the few images I have for the period before then.

But I didn't get far because remembering took me back to that time around Christmas 2011 and moving into a new flat with my wife just before new year.

The memory tags I have reviewed so many times they are familiar to me, orientated me to remember so much more about those days and information ballooned, sometimes reminding me of another fact from the week before. It was not just remembering, it was inhabiting that time again.

Three hours later when I arrived at my destination, I had only reached early February 2012.

Before I sleep, I will do my lightning review to reinforce the images for the intervening time until today. Having them is so precious.

It doesn't take long.

Addiction

All of the methods I have been using to remember every day that passes remain true.

Reviewing the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar reinforces them. I am still running a two-day window over each week starting from two years ago (I have a lot of blanks until I reach 17 December 2011 - the day I began this process). For the last month, I go through every day.

If an image is elusive, I can find it by running through the images for surrounding days.

There are no plot holes - events must happen in order. This also helps me when I get lost.

Having a theme for a week or sequence of days is a short cut to recalling them.

Visualising the layout of the calendar in my mind's eye helps me to orientate myself and move from date to date.

Generally I run through the review as I am waking up, but sometimes this is not possible.

And so I realise I am addicted.

I have to complete the review before I go to sleep again. I find I can pick up where I left off easily enough during the day.

If I fail to complete the review, which has happened a few times, the next day I will cover three days per week for the missing period, or even run through the full sequence of days.

What also continues to be true is this process gives me a grounding sense of perspective and balance, which makes the effort worthwhile.

Though it uses mental space, it does not dominate my day, but gives me something to fill odd moments - and though I am addicted to the reviews, I rarely obsess over events or thoughts as I might have done in the past as they fit into the broader perspective.

Moving through the world

I have just spent some time in the city where my office is based.

We lived here for most of last year and I posted a blog on 8 February 2012 about how when I return to a place it becomes familiar as if I had never been away, while other places fade - until I visit those once more.

It struck me on this visit that this is no longer the case.

In my daily reviews of the images pinned to my mental calendar I check in on most of the places and people I have visited over the past 18 months (depending which days of the week I cover).

This gives me a sense of them continuing without me, of friends and family getting on with their lives.

When we made a weekend trip to visit friends, they had been in my thoughts virtually every day since we had last met as they appeared in different memory tags.

It makes the obvious clearer: although my viewpoint is always where I stand, I am a traveller moving through the world.

Where I stopped

Sometimes I wake up and have to get up.

I don't have time for my morning review of past days.

And so I try to fit in the review during free mental time I might have.

Today is Saturday, so I review all Friday and Saturday tags. The last time I will have reviewed Saturday tags, will have been last Sunday, that is six days ago.

If I have to break off this process, I now find it quite easy to pick up where I left off.

There is a difference between a tag already recalled once today and one recalled six days ago.


At the moment this is not a concern, because I haven't lost any tags.

But it may be telling me something about how memories fade as the time between reviews lengthens.

Remembering backwards

My daily reviews of a portion of the tags on my mental calendar now stretches back two years, prior to the time I began this process of remembering every day that passes on 17 December 2011.

I recall two days per week by reviewing the images I have pinned to those days. If they exist. Which is rare until I hit the magic date. From then on, I have images for every day.

While I have come up with images for some key dates in the mainly blank months - such as weddings, travel, birthdays - generally I have to make do with registering the date for the days of the week I am reviewing and recalling something significant for the month as a whole to at least have some idea of where I was and what was going on in my life.

I am finding some value in doing this, but it markedly different from the richness when my calendar is fully populated.

But there seems little point in trying to fill in all of the blanks.

Here's why.

Today is 31 May and a year ago I know I visited a shopping mall to meet up with a friend. I have an memory tag for the day. An image may be quite inconsequential - sitting with my friend at the mall - but it contains a great deal of information, fixing the day in time and place.

The year before, 31 May 2011, was a Tuesday. I know I was in my wife's country and we were probably staying in our flat at the time, though I cannot be certain.

Perhaps if I trawled through credit card records I could work out we had visited a particular café, which I might remember and might be able to turn that into a memory tag.

It may be defeatist, but I feel it is not worth that effort. It's not the tags that are important, but how they orientate me.

The best of me

The only true defence is love.

I realised this half a lifetime ago.

In my relationships with others, I invariably feel diminished when I act out of anger or selfishness.

I can only really bear the spotlight of self analysis if the motivation for my actions is love.

Living on that basis is a far harder prospect.

But this process of remembering every day that passes helps. There are times where an argument or falling out casts a shadow over a day or period of days. There are others where in difficult circumstances I have managed to put aside my own hurt or demands and shown the best of me.

In my morning reviews, particularly when under stress, I greet the person I can sometimes be like my saviour and try to wear that skin through the day ahead.

Driving posture

I have been doing some long distant driving over the past few days and have found this is a useful way to readjust my posture.

Through the General Postural Reeducation exercises I have been doing regularly, my head is coming into the correct position and I feel the point of pressure where I am adjusting the forward curvature of my spine is moving further down my back.

Sitting in the car, it is possible to keep up this pressure for hours. As with running, over time the muscles around my spine relax, bringing it more into the correct position.

Towards the ends of my journeys, the discomfort in keeping my head in the correct position had just about gone.

Tipping point

My memory tag for 28 April 2013 is a run in the park and reaching a tipping point in my Global Postural Reeducation experiment.

I guess it comes down to geometry.

I have been doing exercises to stop my head projecting, stretching the muscles of my neck so my spine is a little more vertical over my body. This picture on the Dr Sam Tocco site shows it well.

My head needs to move from the poor posture on the right to the vertical posture on the left.

If my neck and the muscles surrounding it are the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, with the base being the vertical line I am aiming for, the change required in its length as it approaches vertical becomes less the closer to vertical it is. In other words, less stretch is needed as vertical is approached, until the hypotenuse and the base coincide.

I noticed this when running on 28 April 2013 - it is my memory tag for that day. I find I loosen up after a few kilometres and on this day it meant my neck could assume the vertical position without straining against resisting muscles. It felt like a weight off my shoulders!

Not only did I no longer have to force my head back to achieve vertical, I had the flexibility to overshoot. In fact, if I wanted I could arch my spine with my belly or chest projecting instead of my head. I felt free, able to choose the posture to bring my body into balance.

As I slipped into this equilibrium position my point of visual focus suddenly extended into the distance. With my head no longer jumping around, I had a stable platform to look from.

Fixing on the path in the distance, externalised my viewpoint.

Suddenly I remembered how it felt to run 20 years ago, with my trunk virtually immobile as my legs did the running. The roll of my shoulders also disappeared; my arms just pumped back and forth. I was a running machine.

It felt so liberating.

I thought I will remember this moment for ever by making it my memory tag for today.

Two-year window

It is now 500 days since I began this process of remembering every day that passes and so far, so good: no lost days.

How to extend this indefinitely is something that I am considering as the time taken in my daily reviews expands. I currently run a two-day window over each week since I began this process to refresh the images pinned to my mental calendar. Today being Tuesday, I recall every Monday and Tuesday, starting from Monday 19 December 2011 (first image: eating mince pies on the last day in my office before travelling for Christmas).

It now feels very arbitrary to begin the process with those first days in December, as if my life before then is somehow separate. It is also increasingly unnecessary as I have filled in some of the blanks on my mental calendar by spending odd moments in the day thinking back to the same day of the month as far back as I have time to go. So today being the 30 April, I recall images for every 30th day, scrollowing back through my memories, sometimes through recent years. A further extension is to go back to my childhood for the same date each year.

I was already thinking that a way to make this refreshing process sustainable is to allow the early dates to drop out of my two-day window review (in which the images are reviewed twice per week) after say two years and then only referesh them in the day per month review thereafter. This process is begin on 17 December 2013.

From then onwards my plan is to start the two-day window two years before, requiring a run through of just over 200 memory tags, which should easily fit within my 20-minute wake up routine (I now fit much of this review into the time I am doing my Global Postural Reeducation exercises).

I am nervous that blanks will start to appear when days move into the day per month review outside the two-year window.

Accordingly, to ease into this two-year window plan, I have started it now, making use of the many images I have found for the days before I began this process.

Any images I have recovered at the start of this period are already a bonus and I hope they will become firmly entrenched and attached to their dates by the time they drop out the two-year window, so building my confidence for when I risk letting these 500 days and counting fall from my reviews.

New perspective

One desired outcome of correcting my faulty posture through Global Postural Reeducation, is to move the position of my head back a few inches.

This is starting to happen, though there is still resistance for my head to sit in the position where it feels it should be.

One impact of the movement that has occured is it gives me a different perspective of the rest of my body: from my viewpoint my chest has expanded.

Of course, if anyone else does notice any difference it will not be to my chest, but the postion of my head.

All the same, it is a little disconcerting to find my chest ballooning.

Clicking gone

I had my first Global Postural Reeducation session on 22 March 2013 (it's my memory tag for that day).

I was motivated by the violent and recurring clicking in my neck, usually when moving my head while working with my laptop on my lap.

I am doing the exercises at home as instructed and am already noticing great changes in my posture - and my self-perception.

It struck me today that the clicking in my neck has just about gone.

I now most often work at a table, not least because it is no longer relaxing to do so slouched in the armchair, but uncomfortable.

Beyond this, my spine seems to be opening up, making me feel a little taller and lighter.

One useful visualisation in trying to adjust mentally to my new posture, is to imagine puppet strings attached to my head, holding it in the correct position, with my body hanging naturally below; the bones and joints of my skeleton falling into place.

The forces I apply to my body in the exercises to loosen up the muscles so this becomes reality, show me where the resistance remains. I am often applying these forces outside of the exercises, as I sit, drive, lean against a wall while waiting for the kettle to boil.

Often I find myself slipping into my chin forward slouch and have to correct it.

But I can see the day coming where forces are replaced by freedom and suppleness.

Having lost much of the violent clicking so soon is unexpected.

Postulating

Nearly a month after I began General Postural Reeducation (my memory tag for 22 March 2013), I have noticed three intriguing side effects.

My posture has definitely improved to the point that I am aware when I am standing or sitting correctly - or nearly so. I still have to stretch my spine out a little more through the various exercises I have been given. Sometimes though, when I am on a run and have loosened up, it feels like I am just about there. There is a sense of recognition. Which brings me to the first side effect.

Checking out in the mirror how I am standing when I clean my teeth, I have a feeling of recaptured youth.

In part this is because my body just sags less with my shoulders back and standing up straight. In part my neck does not seem so scrawny with my head no longer thrusting forward.

But I think the main reason is something much more subtle: a subconscious remembering that this is how I stood as a child, before the burden of my troubles and struggles. It is almost as if I have shaken off the weight of intervening years.

Which leads me to the second intriguing side effect.

Although I have changed my posture - and continue to change it against resisting, tight muscles - this new way of being seems familiar in another way. It is not just the memory of youth, but the discovery of the man within.

Looking at the people around me, I am aware that many of them have poor posture too, but many more have what I suppose I should call normal posture. I feel like I have joined that group. What might sum up the strangeness of this sensation is the feeling of empathy with the man in an advertising hoarding. It is me they have been trying to reach after all. There is a sense of recognition.

I don't know if anyone else notices anything that different. I showed my wife the picture of different postures from my last posting. Although I feel I was as contorted as one of the wrong postures, she didn't see it. So the changes are perhaps subtle, but at the same time I feel I am becoming normal, in the physical sense at least.

Although all the above is largely psychological - not to say anal - the third side effect is even more so.

It is a quiet feeling of peace and confidence. Although I don't really lack either, there is something new happening. Perhaps not just from postural changes, but the developments in my experiment in remembering every day that passes. I feel somehow more relaxed and grounded. Walking down the street with my centre of gravity balanced as it should be, rather than in a chin forward rush, taking on the world.

There have been several times over the past few days where, out and about, I have joked with strangers in a way I haven't done for ages.

Perhaps it comes from feeling more comfortable in my own skin.

Reeducated posture

I have had three sessions of Global Postural Reeducation and have been doing the exercises just about every morning.

It is already making a noticeable difference. Even though my spine isn't quite back into the position where it should be, it is on the way.

My head is now sitting further back and my shoulders are level and not scrunched forward.

I found this site by physiotherapist Susy Russell who suggests a simple test of standing against a wall and seeing how far off your head sits. Every inch adds leverage that your neck muscles have to counter.

I've linked to the image below from Susy's site as it shows my poor posture well.

Although I didn't take note of the terms my own physio used at my diagnosis session on 22 March, I see from this image that I have a tendency for the middle posture. The varioius exercises I have been given aim to loosen up the muscles around my spine to straighten my back. These tend to throw my head back, so I also have to work to bring that down by trying to point my chin towards my chest.

It is not just about stretching, but also reeducation and becoming accustomed to standing or sitting in the correct position. I now do so most of the time. At least, I catch myself in the right position much more often than in the wrong one. Sitting at a table, I have lost the tendency to hunch over it, with my legs crossed. I'm sitting up straight - something that used to feel uncomfortable and unnatural.

There are three intriguing side effects of this process, which I'll write about in the following posts.

Perspective

As I wrote recently, I have lost the surprise that sometimes came with realising an event was a whole year ago.

Now I know what a year feels like: 365 days of events, places, people, weather, changes and familiarity.

When I was a child, it seemed that a year was an eternity. Looking ahead to summer holidays or thinking of moving to the next school year. Contemplating turning 18 and suddenly becoming an adult, wondering if something would suddenly switch on and I would know what to do and never be afraid, like my parents.

I have now recaptured something of that childhood feeling of how big a year is.

Yesterday in an odd moment, I thought back through the 15th day of each month since I began this process. As I often do when I have the time, I went back even further, which brought me to 15 April 2011.

Remembering that day brought a smile to my face.

Not only at the memory, but at the thought: "Ah yes, this is what two years feels like."

The indelible past?

My review of past days was very different today.

My mental calendar has become a landscape with not only the images pinned to each date as memory tags, the surrounding rich context also calls for my attention when I think of a date.

Zooming in on a date brought up so many other memories of it and surrounding days. It felt almost a reversal to move from the vantage point of seeing the whole landscape to step, metaphorically speaking, onto a date to recall the image.

This gave me the breathless thought that maybe the time I need to do these daily reviews is passing.

Each morning I have been running a two-day window over every week (even a three-day window before that started to take too long). So today being Monday, I remember each Sunday and Monday since I began this process on 17 December 2011.

Except this morning I had the feeling that I was constraining myself to pick out the single images I use as tags when the whole landscape is there.

The scary, but exciting thought, which I do not yet believe, is the landscape is the past and so it is permanent and unchanging and will continue to be there. Set in stone. Indelible.

This is surely an illusion as I have constructed my mental calendar from the moments I have chosen to remember. If I stop the process of adding an image to the calendar at the end of the day or no longer review the images to entrench them, surely it will start to fall apart.

I will continue my daily reviews for now, but it seems this experiment has entered a new phase.

Seeing the landscape

Yesterday I lost the feeling of surprise that sometimes arose when recalling a particular image pinned to my mental calendar as a memory tag. The idea that the event might have taken place more recently or longer ago than the reality now seems to be almost like a misconception of an innocent age.

It has taken 484 days of remembering an increasing number of days to appreciate how they fit together.

This appreciation has immediately changed my perspective.

In my review this morning, I moved on from visualising my mental calendar and recalling the tags for each Saturday and Sunday since I began this process on 17 December 2011. Instead, it seemed as if the whole of the calendar was laid out before me, like a landscape. This represented much more than the images pinned to each day: it contained the rise and fall of moods, anticipation of coming events, memories of past events, the feelings conjured up by place and the people I was with, the concerns on my mind. The landscape contains the rich scenery of my life.

Choosing a date still called up the memory tag, but with much less effort, because of the surrounding context. I was not so much trying to find an image to remember the day, but looking for the chosen image amongst the richness surrounding it.

Over this 16 months, I have developed and practised various techniques for remembering elusive memory tags, which principally involve using the surrounding context. Like in my juggling analogy from yesterday, visualising the context now seems to have become second nature and today things clicked into place. Like the time when I suddenly realised I was no longer thinking about throwing and catching juggling ball, but simply juggling.

My minds eye now sees far more of my mental calendar that the images I have used to construct it.

It is breath taking and I am now even more excited to see how this experiment develops.

Not so surprising

Ever since I began this process of remembering every day that passes at the end of 2011, I have been repeatedly surprised at how long ago - or how recently - certain events took place.

I'd think of an image used as a memory tag on my mental calendar in my regular reviews and there would a frisson of surprise at where it fitted in to my timeline.

I know I am not alone in finding the passage of time confusing.

Often in conversation, family and friends will comment on the same thing, particularly as I am now more likely to be able to say precisely when a particular event took place. "Was that really last year? It seems like yesterday." And the opposite.

However, more recently, this feeling has disappeared. I am no longer surprised.

It was initially a conscious decision. A particular image took me by surprise and I reminded myself that I know very well that the event took place a year ago. This seemed to liberate me. Suddenly I had to accept I know where the images fit in their correct place.

It reminds me of learning to juggle.

I found the secret to learning to juggle many years ago (okay, 1987, seeing as I can place it) - enabling me to teach many others to do simple three-ball juggling: think of one aspect at a time. For example, throwing the ball from my right hand so it peaks at a suitable height and falls towards my left hand, without worrying about catching it. Then switching focus to getting rid of the ball that is in my left hand so I can catch the first ball. Ideally that ball should follow an arc to my right hand, but I don't worry about that: dropping the ball is fine. Then focus on catching the first ball in my empty left hand. With each step I told myself I didn't need to worry about the previous ones as I had already demonstrated to myself that I had mastered them.

Following this process, the day came when I had progressed through all the required steps and could juggle. At the outset I would have to focus in again on a particular aspect to sort out shortcomings, but with time it took no conscious thought at all.

So I know how the images on my mental calendar are arranged. I have put in the effort at developing ways to remember those that are elusive. It should no longer surprise me they are in order, that particular events took place when they did.

And it seems I am no longer surprised.