Real Life and Fiction

Reading Paul Auster's The Red Notebook brought to mind a worry I've had about my memory and its limitations and how this could affect my writing and my life. Maya Angelou's remembrances in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings are remarkable, as are Paul Auster's recollection of coincidence and episodes experienced by or told to him in his life, recounted in The Red Notebook.

Even if I had the writing skills of Angelou or Auster, I would not be able to put down remembered events without remembering them. Auster tells of the time he met a sporting hero of his, when he didn't have a pencil for autograph and how he's kept one on him since and how this is linked to why he became a writer. I have, over the years tried to capture memories, in photos, videos, scraps of paper, backs of envelopes, journals and little notebooks carried in pouches round my neck and more recently on my phone and online.

But my past memories are those elusive clouds that keep dissipating with the sunshine of the now. I wonder how to find them and realise I have to find the people who shared them and ask them to share them with me again. Memories such as those I only seem to have the titles for like these few that come to mind now:

• Cahirmee Fair
  
  
• 20 Sweet Briar Lane
• The whistle call home
• Cutting the peat
• Building tents against the hedge
• Cabbage, rhubarb & roses
• Playing in unbuilt houses
• Summer, sandals and bare feet
• Pennies on the railway line
• The turf mountain
• Robins in the hedge
• Waiting at the gate
• The pottery shed in the back
• Rabbits hanging outside the outhouse
• No whitethorn in the house
• The blue suitcase
• The wrong church
• The blacksmith
• The milk churn, wringer and latch on the door
• Rounders on the 'green field'
• The gunman in the shop

Nothing really seems noteworthy (apart for, perhaps the last)  but all remembered. Why? Why do these events in my life stand out over others. I know that with some memories it's the adrenaline but for others its the association. Some feeling or other that stuck with me. As a writer my job is to unpack that and turn a feeling, event or remembrance into a story. Not an autobiography - a story.

There are only three reasons for anyone to write an autobiography:

1. The person is extremely famous and/or talented in their field.
2. The person has had an extraordinarily interesting life.
3. The person can write so well that however ordinary their life, their writing can raise it to the extraordinary or at the very least be interesting to the reader.

So the rest of us will instead make do and take some elements of our experience and try to weave them into a piece which we hope tells a story, If we can remember, that is.

How to Use Your Brain: Life Long Learning

Learning and Memory

Graffiti by Paula Delfin

'Learning is how you acquire new information about the world, and memory is how you store that information over time,' according to Eric Kandel, of the Dana Institute in Staying Sharp: Learning as We Age, 'There is no memory without learning, but there is learning without memory, you can learn things and forget them immediately' (p.5). The same way you can remember a phone number just long enough to key it in.

Our thoughts, senses and actions are 'patterns of electrical and chemical signals travelling between nerve cells' in our brains (p.6). To make learning and memories stick we rehearse and reinforce the use of certain patterns. The more we repeatedly use certain pathways the more automatic the retrieval of the data at the end.

Short term memory only hold 7 (plus or minus 2) items according to Miller (1956) so if we want learning to transfer to the long term memory we have to do something about it.

 

How to Keep  Sharp* 

Stimulating Mental Exercise (p.8)
Continued Learning (p.8)
Self Efficacy (p.8)
Social Interaction (p.8)
Aerobic Exercise (p. 10-11)
Stay Positive (p. 19-20)
Manage Stress (*p.20) 

 

Learning Changes the Brain*

The brain is moulded by learning. It evolves physically creating new and strengthening old connections and cells.

'About a fifth of 70-year-olds perform as well on cognitive tests as 20-year-olds do on average'

 (Dana Institute, p.12).

Minding Your Memory*

1. Pay Attention
2. Stay Focused
3. Repeat it
4. Write it down
5. Visualise it
6. Make associations
7. Stay organised
8. Plan and Prioritise (p. 14)

 

8 Healthy Habits that Boost Your Brain (according to Reader's Digest)

• Learn New Things (boosts memory)
• Play Games (brain teasers with planning and strategising to improve memory)
• Manage Stress (cortisol created can damage short term memory)
• Include Resveratrol in Diet (found in blueberries, red wine & dark chocolate)
• Cut Down on Sugar (lower sugar levels = better performance)
• Sleep (helps memory)
• Taking ibuprofen may help (for inflammation)
• Exercise (some helps verbal and some spatial skills)

 

Other Useful Articles/Links:

 How to Improve Your Memory by HelpGuide.org

10 Foods to Boost Your Brain Power by BBC Foods

Can I Increase My Brain Power? by The Guardian

Tips & Techniques to Improve Your Memory by BBC

References

* Dana Institute in Staying Sharp: Learning as We Age

Miller, G. (1956) 'The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information', The Psychological Review, 63, 81-97