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Remembering Forward
Where past, present, and future blend and blur
I get a new journal and open it to a random page. I stare at it hard, thinking there must be something there besides just blankness.
There must be, because later, there will be. I will fill up this journal as I have filled many others. Assuming I am alive for at least the next few months (which is statistically likely), this page will get filled. It will have words on it that say what happens to me next. Shouldn’t I be able to see a trace of those words now if I look hard enough?
Why can’t we remember forward? It seems so arbitrary that memory only goes one way.
I love the idea of the borders between the past, present, and future blurring, collapsing, becoming transparencies. Thinking about it sends shivers down my spine and makes life feel vast. I’ve been collecting instances in which something I read or watch evokes that tingly sense in me.
It’s not just about seeing some faint trace of the future. It’s also about looking at the past and reflecting on moments that turned out to be significant, but you had no idea at the time. The “little did I know” phenomenon.
David Sedaris describes this feeling well in the introduction to his book, Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977–2002. He reflects on looking at past…
