Things I Could Have Said At the Reunion

To Mel Korobkin, who had just told me I was his token Mormon those many years ago: You were not my token Jew.

To Neal Treadwell, perennial tough guy: Good grief, Neal, you are your dad, right down to the false teeth.

To Vince Guercio, perennial toughest guy ever: You really don't look good.

To Bob Goon: You were never nearly the father of my children.

Aging, Part 2

Maybe I didn't look quite old enough, and now I do. There's no mistaking white hair and what it says.

Maybe there was some look on my face that irritated or a challenge in my eyes. Maybe I looked like I thought I was smart; that's always a challenge. Maybe I was always looking for resistance, looking for a fight.

Maybe that's all gone now.

I say it because people seem nicer, more cordial, more accommodating. Even those young service people behind counters. Maybe I look less threatening, a smile on my face, something more welcoming in my eyes.

I'm not sure if it's me or if it's them, but it's real.

Aging, Part 1

My doctor--a phrase I never thought I'd use--calls me "young lady" as he enters the exam room, hand extended toward me. I shake his hand and ponder his words. It's not the first time he has addressed me thus, and, by the way, he repeats the label as he exits the room. I don't like it, of course, and so, since I now know him better than I ever wanted to, I ask him, "Why do you call me young lady when it's obvious I am not young?" Unflapped, he says, "Because you are young."

Hmph. I must admit I like his answer. At least it sends my thoughts in a better direction.

And at least he doesn't call me "Sweetie," as my dermatologist does. Yes, I don't like saying "my dermatologist" either, but I see him, Dr Burr, annually so he can freeze away my pre-cancer spots. This because I grew up on the beach, so to speak, and still haven't accustomed myself to the feel and smell of sun block on my face.

I once asked him not to call me Sweetie. He was visibly shaken, having mistakenly thought that I, and every woman in her 60s, would love to be called Sweetie and that he was doing me a favor. Or something like that.

I don't remember his reply. He did his best to recover, but it was clear he did not know how to address me for the remainder of that appointment. "Mrs Schiess" or even Carol would have been fine, but apparently that would have required too much thought. Of course, he had my chart in his hands . . . with my name on it. In his defense I will say that he did not then treat me rudely, even though I had made him feel uncomfortable. But, hey, as soon him as me. The feeling uncomfortable part, I mean.

The next year it was like this: His nurse led me to an exam room and asked, "How's your day going, Hon?" I may have muttered something about the "Hon." And when Dr Burr came into the room, hand extended, he was back to calling me Sweetie. Oh well.

Try To Remember

I've been reading the dictionary this morning, its definitions of remember, among which are: 2 to bring back to mind by an effort; recollect, recall and 3 to bear in mind; keep in the memory, be careful not to forget.

When I was teaching I would tell my students that if they would start writing, if they would simply do the physical thing of putting pencil to paper or fingers to keyboard, then ideas and memories would come to their minds. I still believe that.

I might also have told them, certainly I thought it, that there was value in writing their memories so as to preserve them. Now I wonder, because in writing we condense; we simply have to, whether we have an audience in mind or whether we are our only audience (and I always hope someone besides me will read what I write).

"All writing is written to be read," I also told them. So if I'm writing my memories for someone to read, I may want them to have all the details, but I can't expect them to want to read them all, and so I condense, trying to put on paper the most important or the most captivating. And I may be as true to the truth as I can be, but certain parts I might leave out and others just tweek a bit. Even if I don't, something about the actual memory is changed when I put it in writing.

Isn't that right?

Mary Blew and Annie Dillard say it's right. They say that what you have written becomes the memory, just as a photograph of a place becomes your memory of that place.

For me, I would like to deny that it's right. I would like to believe I can keep it all straight in my head--what I know/remember and what I choose to write about it. Obviously, this is an important notion for me, and it may be what has stopped me from writing a memoir about Wayne and me because a) I don't want to lose any of the memories for myself, and b) I want the reader to get a true picture.

Words are shifty, anyway. I can't know how any reader will interpret what I write. That seems daunting, but a writer can't let it be.

Here's the truth. If I write it, no guarantee it will be read. If I don't, that is the guarantee it won't be.