Remember, remember

How??

I got to page three this morning before coming across a word I had never seen before — which didn’t seem too bad for learning a brand new topic. Now Halloween is done, Bonfire night over and no more methods of procrastination available to me, it’s day one of tackling my reading list for the Graduate Certificate in Psychology. My terror of being the (oldest) dunce in the class has spurred me on to try and get ahead — and I was half way through an article on memory aids and cognition when I came across ‘abscissa’.

Up to that point I had learned that the people in the study claimed to use ‘external’ aids more than ‘internal’ — ie they write shopping lists rather than make up rhymes in their heads about the things they need to buy. I had also learned that a group of women in Cambridge in 1979 felt it was their responsibility, not their husbands’, to remember family birthdays and social events. And that I was not unique for scrawling crucial reminders in ink on my hand.

Interestingly, or not, only one person in the sample had ever tied a knot in their handkerchief. I tried to remember the last time I used a handkerchief.

I’d particularly enjoyed going through the questionnaire the people in the study had been given about their likelihood of remembering certain things, but then had to remind myself — rather sternly — that this was not one of my secret pleasures; a personality test in a glossy magazine, or even a ‘What type of manager are you’ survey or Myers Briggs exercise of the sort I’d spent much of the last eight years of my life doing, but a serious academic study I was meant to be committing to heart.

So — determined not to let a little word like ‘abscissa’ flummox me, I merrily typed it into Google and expected to be on my way.

Only, I then hit a snag: Wikipedia told me that abscissa “refers to the horizontal coordinate of a point in a two-dimensional rectangular Cartesian coordinate system”, and unfortunately I wasn’t too sure what a rectangular Cartesian coordinate system was. And I was feeling distinctly one dimensional.

I ploughed on and discovered that “A Cartesian coordinate system is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely in a plane by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances from the point to two fixed perpendicular directed lines, measured in the same unit of length.”

Which didn’t help much. By now my brain was sore, and I had forgotten what I was trying to understand. I was not sure how uniquely specified points in a plane were going to help me. Reading further — remembering as I did all the dark warnings about taking Wikipedia entries as gospel truth, and feeling perhaps I should find a more rigorously academic source, but too dazed to stop — I learned that the Cartesian system was named after Rene Descartes the 17th century philosopher and mathematician, and was apparently pretty revolutionary as it “provided the first systematic link between Euclidean geometry and algebra”.

Algebra — yes! I definitely knew what that was. And I’d heard of Descartes too. I was getting somewhere. Although nowhere near absc… absc what was that word I was trying to look up? But, then I began to panic; I’m meant to be studying psychology and no one told me I was going to have to do algebra. Of course I’d known it was an ‘ology’, and therefore somewhat scientific, but algebra on day one was a shock. The article took great pains to point out that Descartes was — and is — widely considered a true genius. Which felt a little like a slap in the face. I’m sure I had known at some point that he was the originator of the famed “I think therefore I am” statement but along the way in life that nugget had flown from my brain.

What else have I forgotten? What did I never know? What do I know now? How can I sing along to every word of Pat Benatar’s “We belong” when she comes on Magic FM (another guilty pleasure when my Radio 6 Music loving husband’s not around) but not remember who said “I think therefore I am”?

If my thinking is anything to go by my being isn’t much it seems. Or do we always rate the things we can’t do as harder and infinitely more valuable than those we can? I could probably recount every story I’ve ever heard, every emotion I’ve ever witnessed, every song lyric that ever made me cry. But I absolutely could not ever tell you what I learned in a single maths or physics lesson. Ever. And here I am, day one in a new world and it seems algebra is deeply relevant. I could weep.

Having a child plays funny games with your memory — and your sense of intelligence. You know so much more than your two year old, that you can quite easily feel immensely bright. “What’s a toothbrush mummy?” “Well, darling, its for cleaning your teeth so they don’t fall out”. There isn’t much you don’t know it seems. Until the dreaded follow up: “Why?”

I was teaching my daughter the ‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot’ rhyme earlier in the week — slightly concerned it might lead me into a conversation about bombs and gruesome methods of execution — but as I was frantically trying to remember whether the second line started with ‘there is no reason’ or ‘I see no reason’ — which seemed absolutely crucial to get right at the time — I wasn’t prepared for the “What are fireworks, mummy?” question from a terrified Seren, rigidly ignoring my chanting and cowering under the hood of her buggy. She wanted to understand why people would let off ‘storms’ (her word) for fun ‘like balloons at a party’ as I had tried to reassure her fireworks were, and when I said it’s because they were beautiful, and she asked again ‘why?’ — well, I had no more answers.

A few minutes later her little voice piped up from under the hood “Where’s the poppy?”

“Poppy? I don’t know darling — did you and Nana buy a red Poppy today?”

“No!” irritated: “Pop-py.”

“Um.. Poppy? Nana always likes to buy poppies. Yes — did you know my grandfather fought in the first world war — so I always wear one too. Although I’m not sure I really believe in war per se…” too much information for a two and a half year old, clearly. And also obviously not helping, as Seren’s frustration grew. A few more iterations and I finally realised she was saying “popping” — the fireworks had paused momentarily.

I’m not so interested to know how we remember things — although I am sure that is crucial in our cognitive development and I will come to be fascinated by it when I understand the broader picture of what it tells us — but to me now, I am interested in what we remember and why. I choose to wear a poppy to remember my grandfather. And I remember the ditty about Guy Fawkes night because my grandmother’s birthday was the same day and we always had a wonderful bonfire, cup-a-soups (Sorry Gwyneth) and baked potatoes while watching my dad race back and forth across the grass from one firework to another. For me the rhyme evokes a guaranteed happy memory. For Seren it will probably always now be associated with pure terror — I wonder if she will remember it or not when she is 40.

Pulling myself together, I return to the matter in hand. Abscissa — that’s it. I wonder if I will remember what it means — if I ever truly understand — when I am 80. And will it help me remember how other people remember things?

A fresh google search tells me that Abscissa is a dedicated online retailer and wholesaler of Fancy Dress and Halloween Costumes.

I must remember that for next year.