The Digitization of Memory

Penny, December 1980 — ©2025 Patrick T. Power

Sometimes I wonder how it is I recall the things I recall. Some of the oddest memories pop into my head when I least suspect them. Case in point: this past week, I recalled a day I had ridden my bike to visit a high school classmate either the summer following our Junior year or possibly the following year. So... either 1972 or 1973. The memory that remains pretty vivid with me is that at some point, we left his house to go to his older brother's place not all that far away. I don't recall the reason we went there as his brother wasn't home, so maybe it was to take his mail in or water plants or something. But while I sat in one of the chairs in the living room, he picked up and showed me a small spray can of mace, the type that postal carriers are known to keep on them in the event of a dog attack. He squirted just a minute amount into the air and it had me gagging. It was amazing how so little could spread so quickly.

I have lots of little memories like that stored in the crevasses of my brain that randomly come to the surface for almost no reason.

Another is one that I sort of documented in the above diptych. Because lately I've been doing so much scanning of negatives from photographs taken during the time I was married—mostly of the kids or family get-togethers—the photographs have spurred memories from those times. But I didn't need to see these two photographs to recall the moment. In fact, it was as I was scanning other negatives that I wondered where this set of negatives were because I hadn't come across them. These two photographs specifically came to mind, and along with them, the moment that I think I realized I was in love with the woman.

Penny and I had just gotten back to her place from her parents' house, which the other photographs from that roll reminded me that we had attended her youngest sister's annual "Christmas Pageant" in the family room. For reasons I can't recall, I wanted to take Penny's picture before she entered the apartment. Probably, it was just how great she looked in her hooded coat against the backdrop of a snowy evening. The skirt she wore that night, if memory serves, was one she had recently purchased at a small boutique in Lansing called Kilamanjaro. Again, if memory serves, she had done some artwork for the owner of the boutique, Mattie Robinson, so maybe the skirt was her payment.

What I do recall about the moment was such a small thing, really. Just as I raised the camera to my eye, she told me to hold on. She wanted the dress to be in the photo, so reached down (despite all she was holding) and pulled a small section of it out from under her coat. And the photographs memorialized it.

So, I guess that's what I'm referring to as the digitization of memory. Not only am I scanning photographs that are historical visual records of fractions of moments in time, I'm scanning memories of those moments. I could have told this story without the photographs. That is, I didn't need the photographs to recall that moment. But I do like knowing that there is photographic evidence of it.

And now that I'm thinking about it, that moment was also the inspiration for a song I would write many years later:

We were married on a Christmas Day
A very long time ago, I must say
We walked through the snow
And we talked 'til the day turned to night

Time was not friendly, it went too fast
Our future too quickly became our past
It caught me off guard, I thought it would last
That it might

I guess I assumed that you felt the same
It seemed like you could, it seemed you became
A star I could follow, a treasure to claim
As my own

But somehow something clouded my view
I turned my head 'round and I lost track of you
A storm navigated by only a few
Hit my home

So now here we stand at the threshold again
Looking behind us and forward and then
Knowing too well that this might be the end
Of the light

We were married on a Christmas day
A very long time ago, I must say
We walked through the snow and we talked 'til the day
Turned to night

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Unless otherwise noted, all writings on this blog are copyright Patrick T. Power. All rights reserved.

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