Jaki Jean on the Little Red Ball & the Snare of Memory

Memory is a snare, pure & simple:  it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.  (p.95)  Mario Vargas Llosa, The Story Teller .

In the wake of the fallout from journalist Brian Williams misremembering that he had been shot down in a helicopter in a war zone, when in fact, he was in another helicopter, I want to write about the snares of memory.

In my soon to be sixty plus old mind, I remember an incident from my childhood that convinced me my mother Jean betrayed & failed me.

We were still living in Dallas & my parents had a couple & their children over for dinner.  We had visited the couple & their children at their home, so it was a return invitation.

All of the children were deaf, all  read lips & some were able to verbalize.  Or at least that is how I remember it. 

After dinner, or perhaps before – the snare of memory is like that & for this story it does not matter – I played with the girl closest to my age.    I showed her my dollhouse.

Now, my dollhouse was not one of those gorgeous architectural reproductions – it was of metal, not wood.  I had no reproductions of fine furniture or art or carpets.  But I did have a little red ball in the corner of one of the rooms.

I no longer remember why I loved that little red ball – or why I thought that it was the finest, reddest, most perfect little red ball I had, in my then few short years of experience, encountered.

When the family left, the girl I played with went up to Jean, my perfect little red ball in her hand, & asked if she could have it.

Jean gave it to her.

Because so much time has passed, I cannot remember my reaction. 

Except for anger & disappointment & an inexplicable sense of loss of the perfect little red ball.

That was embellished & rewritten & remembered through the filter of a story teller.  A snare of memory.

Over our years together as adult daughter & ever so slightly older mother, I have talked to Jean many times about the little red ball & how she gave away my treasure.

One year a long day ago,  at Christmas or my birthday, Jean gave me a present & in the box, outside the tissue paper covering what was inside, was a little red ball.

That discovery was not a snare of memory, but a wonder & affirmation of a mother’s love.

This afternoon, I left my workspace & writing to ask Jean if she remembered the incident & story of the little red ball.

She did not. 

And that is just another one of the snares of memory.

Over the years, I have misremembered many incidents.  I have confused time & space & players.  Not to mention conversations.

I don’t think I have misremembered the incident of the little red ball or confused time & space & players.  I don’t think the snare of memory has taken that incident from me.

I think Jean gave our guest, a little girl who could not hear, the brilliantly red ball I cherished, because she needed it  far more than I ever would.

We all misremember – especially if we are storytellers or writers.  We embellish, we recreate, we make the story something our friends or public want to hear or read.

Memory is filtered by many things – time & space & experience.  Perception & state of mind & maturity.   By the audience, by who is listening or reading or wondering.   By events.  But always, it is a snare, altering, rearranging, rewriting, sculpted to fit in the moment.

PS:  I am certain the perfect, most brilliant little red ball came from one of these.