Reading Mark Twain's autobiography, which he insisted should be published only after his death- offers a testament to memory and the way it leaves us unhusked and wide open.
Every other paragraph makes me laugh in that salty, happy-taste-life kind of way. Like this one:
“For many years I believed that I remembered helping my grandfather drink his whisky toddy when I was six weeks old but I do not tell about that anymore now; I am growing old and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”
And then Micah sticks out her tongue when she concentrates on something very hard- and I remember how my grandfather would turn beet-red and tell me to stick my tongue back in my mouth or the flies would lay eggs on it. His advice didn't cure me of the habit of sticking out my tongue when trying very hard to write the perfect letter "B" or to glue a twig back on to the tree from which it tumbled....
