For the first 18 years of my life, I would go to Ecuador every summer to visit my family and to eat plantains. One of my favorite things to do, though, was to sit with my grandmother, "Lita," and pour over magazine articles about Princess Diana. We were both obsessed with the monarchy, so we'd spend time studying the history of Queen Elizabeth and learning about all the members of her family. To this day, I know a lot of miscellaneous information about the Windsors; just FYI, if you ever have a burning question about them, I'm your go-to person. In any event, had Lita not died a year before Princess Diana, I know she would have been just as devastated by Diana's death as I was. I also know that Lita would have been just as excited as I was today to learn of Prince William's engagement to Kate Middleton.
I've had a rough couple of days at work dealing with things like stress, ingratitude, and racism, so I guess it's not that surprising that today as I scoured the internet for every possible news story about William and Kate--everything from how they met to what the menu might be at their wedding--I was also kind of sad, remembering and missing Lita.
I was also struck by the fact that I had completely forgotten about my afternoons with Lita reading about royalty until this morning when I heard the news about the engagement. My very first thought was how I wished I could talk to my grandmother about it. So that got me thinking of memories and how anything can trigger them but also how they can so easily slip away. I don't have anything profound to say about the tenuousness of memories; I just thought I'd mention it.
Anyhoo, I'll leave you with a really good poem by Billy Collins, former poet laureate, whose poetry reading I got to go to on Saturday. The poem is called, rather appropriately, "Forgetfulness." Enjoy it while I go look for more William/Kate news and also return texts from all my friends who are livid about the Dancing With the Stars eliminations tonight. I might have to write a whole separate blog entry later on about how America got it wrong yet again. Sigh.
"Forgetfulness" by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
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