Memory: lost, retrieved, elusive, concussive

Younger daughter and I have been taking watercolour lessons over the past year. As a result, I'm becoming a wee bit more familiar with the materials required and the ones which I prefer.

Recently, I dropped into Island View Print, which is the most convenient art supply store, relative to my haunts and wanderings. We've been painting long enough to begin running out of supplies, and I've developed a liking for a brand of paper called, oddly, "The Langton". Demeter picked a pad of it up from Island View Point about seven years ago. It's difficult to pinpoint or even describe why I like it. It's soft and giving (does that make sense?), and I think what I manage to produce somehow looks better on it.

I had looked it up online, and it's there, but doesn't look readily available, so I asked the nice fellow in the shop about it.

He shook his head regretfully.
"I doubt they make it anymore."

He directed me to the watercolour paper shelves, to see if I could find something to my liking.

To my astonishment, I spotted the familiar green cover in the bottom shelf. I extracted it and waved my trophy at the assistant in delight.

"You must have found the very last pad we have!" he exclaimed.

I was cradling it triumphantly as I advanced to the cash register, when I saw a lady with a familiar face enter. I smiled warmly at her; she also smiled - politely - and proceeded into the store.

I finished my purchases, and was juggling my treasures while trying to retrieve my cloth bag from my knapsack. The lady came up to pay for her supplies, and placed a card on the counter, explaining she was a teacher - for a discount, I guess. And I was juggling, struggling, and thinking: Jessica? Jessie? Last name?

I would have tried to surreptitiously read the name on the card, if I hadn't thought this would be a rude and disturbing thing to do.

By the time I'd stepped out to the bus stop, I was sure I had known her from my teaching days at the university. We had become quite good buddies. I'd even been to her house in my days of early motherhood.

But she showed no signs of recognition, and I hesitated.

At home, I rummaged through my journals, and found her. The journals told me her last name, and that she'd visited me in the hospital after I'd given birth, and that she and another friend became estranged.

I'd forgotten all of this. I'd even mentioned the estrangement in passing at the time, no doubt certain I'd remember the details without writing them down. She'd clearly drifted out of my life with the birth of younger daughter, and I hadn't even noticed.

Writing things down helps, but it doesn't always prevent the fading away.

You think you'll remember. You won't.