Please don't be offended if I forget.
It's not you, it's me.
I swear.
I can't say that my memory isn't what it used to be because I think it's exactly what it always was. When a person tells me their telephone number, I smile and nod. When I'm given directions to an important location, I smile and nod. When it's my turn to order at a restaurant, I smile and nod. Then ten seconds later, I'm consulting phone books, maps, and menus for what I should have remembered in the first place.
My entire life has been one memorable experience after another. Or so I've been told.
One of my biggest dreams is to see Paris. Among its many treasures I would love to visit are the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and of course that tall pile of iron on the Champ de Mars. Novelist Guy de Maupassant famously said that he hated the Eiffel Tower so much that he wrote from inside the structure every day because it was the only place in Paris where he did not have to look at the eyesore. I'd love to follow in those witty footsteps, but chances are good that once I ride the elevator to the top, I'll forget where I was going.
You see, I've already been to Paris. The opportunity presented itself when I was in high school and I jumped at the chance. My French was limited to phrases taught in the fifth grade, but I would be going with a tour group, so knowing the days of the week seemed more than sufficient.
I clearly recall Mom warning me not to stray from the group, lest I encounter any kidnappers. The week before I departed we went on a shopping spree to find a universal plug, phone card, money belt, and the perfect fanny pack. When it came time to board the airplane, she made sure that I knew the combination to all four locks on my suitcase. I may not have been prepared to speak in a foreign tongue, but I was good to go in the event of another Cold War.
This is where my memories start to get fuzzy. I know my ears didn't pop for several hours after getting off the plane from Regina to Toronto. I couldn't hear a thing and thought instead of learning French, I should have studied sign language. The flight from Toronto to Paris is a blur, which is odd because I know for a fact that I could not sleep. What I did for those nine hours, or who I sat with, or what the plane looked like remains a mystery.
After the long, sleepless flight we were whisked away to a hotel that I couldn't identify even if you pointed at it and said that's where I stayed. With the time change, it was early morning and there was no time to take a nap before heading directly to the Louvre. Therefore, my time spent among the great masterpieces of all time was totally wasted on me.
I never would have seen the Mona Lisa were it not for Bernie. Bernie was one of the adult chaperones on the trip and even though she was bleary eyed with jet lag, she had come a long way to see the Mona Lisa and was not going to miss it. So while the others sat dazed on benches, Bernie grabbed my hand and dragged me from one end of the giant museum to the other. We had less than two hours to soak everything in, so as a result I have a few blurry photos of what appears to be the Mona Lisa, but could just as easily be snapshots of the hardwood floor.
After our brief stint at the Louvre, I latched onto Bernie as though she were my own personal tour guide. The two of us were always at the front of the pack, but now all I can recall of our adventures is the blue and yellow jacket she wore. I do remember how excited she was to make the pilgrimage to Lourdes, where her namesake Saint Bernadette had been visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The spring water at Lourdes is believed to have magical healing powers, so millions of people visit the village each year to cure them of their ailments. I can't tell you what the village looked like, but I vaguely recall there being a lot of people hobbling around on crutches and some serious wheelchair gridlock.
Oh, the potatoes! It was Easter week and apparently the custom in France at Easter is to make everyone eat potatoes until they want to die. The whole time I was there (I have no idea how long I was there), I seemed to eat nothing but potatoes. Potatoes for breakfast, potatoes lunch, and potatoes dinner. Still today, whenever I see a French restaurant, I turn the other way in case there's nothing on the menu but French fries served atop a baked potato. Thank god Julia Child didn't enroll in culinary school on Good Friday or else she'd be famous for mastering the art of potatoes.
I have an entire photo album filled to the brim with pictures of tourist attractions that are famous mostly for being photographed. How my picture of Notre Dame is better than any other is beyond me. In fact, now I wonder why people travel thousands of miles to take pictures of the things they've seen in pictures. Whenever I see tourists pointing cameras at the CN Tower, I want to shake them and yell, "Take pictures of each other! That tower isn't going anywhere, but your Aunt Mildred here is hanging on by a thread!"
In all my three hundred plus pictures of Paris, I'm in precisely one of them. My eyes are shut and my fanny pack looks like a neon green kangaroo pouch, but at least I know I was there. There's proof, even if I don't recall the monument I'm obscuring. The rest are the same ones you can find in any Paris travel guide, minus the occasional blue and yellow streak of Bernie's jacket in the distance.
This trip is just one example of many things I've mostly forgotten. Entire family trips, gone. Whole visits back home, erased. Sometimes friends and family members see my forgetfulness as a lack of caring and get offended. I constantly have to reassure people that it's not that I didn't have a good time; it's just that I was probably focusing on the next good time.
I like to think that I live in the now, rather than the then. I'm not one to dwell on the past, nor do I plan too far into the future. When memories do come my way, either in a dream or in a daydream, I find myself discovering them with the same enthusiasm as though they had never happened in the first place.
So while I don't remember much about Paris, I know I was there. And some day I'll be there again, for the very first time.
It's not you, it's me.
I swear.
I can't say that my memory isn't what it used to be because I think it's exactly what it always was. When a person tells me their telephone number, I smile and nod. When I'm given directions to an important location, I smile and nod. When it's my turn to order at a restaurant, I smile and nod. Then ten seconds later, I'm consulting phone books, maps, and menus for what I should have remembered in the first place.
My entire life has been one memorable experience after another. Or so I've been told.
One of my biggest dreams is to see Paris. Among its many treasures I would love to visit are the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and of course that tall pile of iron on the Champ de Mars. Novelist Guy de Maupassant famously said that he hated the Eiffel Tower so much that he wrote from inside the structure every day because it was the only place in Paris where he did not have to look at the eyesore. I'd love to follow in those witty footsteps, but chances are good that once I ride the elevator to the top, I'll forget where I was going.
You see, I've already been to Paris. The opportunity presented itself when I was in high school and I jumped at the chance. My French was limited to phrases taught in the fifth grade, but I would be going with a tour group, so knowing the days of the week seemed more than sufficient.
I clearly recall Mom warning me not to stray from the group, lest I encounter any kidnappers. The week before I departed we went on a shopping spree to find a universal plug, phone card, money belt, and the perfect fanny pack. When it came time to board the airplane, she made sure that I knew the combination to all four locks on my suitcase. I may not have been prepared to speak in a foreign tongue, but I was good to go in the event of another Cold War.
This is where my memories start to get fuzzy. I know my ears didn't pop for several hours after getting off the plane from Regina to Toronto. I couldn't hear a thing and thought instead of learning French, I should have studied sign language. The flight from Toronto to Paris is a blur, which is odd because I know for a fact that I could not sleep. What I did for those nine hours, or who I sat with, or what the plane looked like remains a mystery.
After the long, sleepless flight we were whisked away to a hotel that I couldn't identify even if you pointed at it and said that's where I stayed. With the time change, it was early morning and there was no time to take a nap before heading directly to the Louvre. Therefore, my time spent among the great masterpieces of all time was totally wasted on me.
I never would have seen the Mona Lisa were it not for Bernie. Bernie was one of the adult chaperones on the trip and even though she was bleary eyed with jet lag, she had come a long way to see the Mona Lisa and was not going to miss it. So while the others sat dazed on benches, Bernie grabbed my hand and dragged me from one end of the giant museum to the other. We had less than two hours to soak everything in, so as a result I have a few blurry photos of what appears to be the Mona Lisa, but could just as easily be snapshots of the hardwood floor.
After our brief stint at the Louvre, I latched onto Bernie as though she were my own personal tour guide. The two of us were always at the front of the pack, but now all I can recall of our adventures is the blue and yellow jacket she wore. I do remember how excited she was to make the pilgrimage to Lourdes, where her namesake Saint Bernadette had been visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The spring water at Lourdes is believed to have magical healing powers, so millions of people visit the village each year to cure them of their ailments. I can't tell you what the village looked like, but I vaguely recall there being a lot of people hobbling around on crutches and some serious wheelchair gridlock.
Oh, the potatoes! It was Easter week and apparently the custom in France at Easter is to make everyone eat potatoes until they want to die. The whole time I was there (I have no idea how long I was there), I seemed to eat nothing but potatoes. Potatoes for breakfast, potatoes lunch, and potatoes dinner. Still today, whenever I see a French restaurant, I turn the other way in case there's nothing on the menu but French fries served atop a baked potato. Thank god Julia Child didn't enroll in culinary school on Good Friday or else she'd be famous for mastering the art of potatoes.
I have an entire photo album filled to the brim with pictures of tourist attractions that are famous mostly for being photographed. How my picture of Notre Dame is better than any other is beyond me. In fact, now I wonder why people travel thousands of miles to take pictures of the things they've seen in pictures. Whenever I see tourists pointing cameras at the CN Tower, I want to shake them and yell, "Take pictures of each other! That tower isn't going anywhere, but your Aunt Mildred here is hanging on by a thread!"
In all my three hundred plus pictures of Paris, I'm in precisely one of them. My eyes are shut and my fanny pack looks like a neon green kangaroo pouch, but at least I know I was there. There's proof, even if I don't recall the monument I'm obscuring. The rest are the same ones you can find in any Paris travel guide, minus the occasional blue and yellow streak of Bernie's jacket in the distance.
This trip is just one example of many things I've mostly forgotten. Entire family trips, gone. Whole visits back home, erased. Sometimes friends and family members see my forgetfulness as a lack of caring and get offended. I constantly have to reassure people that it's not that I didn't have a good time; it's just that I was probably focusing on the next good time.
I like to think that I live in the now, rather than the then. I'm not one to dwell on the past, nor do I plan too far into the future. When memories do come my way, either in a dream or in a daydream, I find myself discovering them with the same enthusiasm as though they had never happened in the first place.
So while I don't remember much about Paris, I know I was there. And some day I'll be there again, for the very first time.
