AQQ: On Memory

Beryl Markham writes in her remarkable memoirs, West With the Night (1942):

"How is it possible to bring order out of memory? I should like to begin at the beginning, patiently, like a weaver at his loom. I should like to say, 'This is the place to start; there can be no other.' "

The very process of remembering distorts memory. What ever you focus on, even for a moment, rips the thread, like a fly entangled. To dip into the pool at all is to start an agitation on its surface that alters the vision, but also makes it alive. Memory raised to its highest power, by the assistance of systematic thought and analysis, that is, bringing order out of memory, is the process we call history. We never begin at the beginning. We start with what we have and work back, peeling away the layers, using evidence to reconstruct what happened earlier. There is always something earlier, and for humans the process is never complete.