Putting things in boxes

“Do you have a box, Patrick?” the Headmaster of our village primary school asked my friend at the beginning of assembly.  Even aged 10, or somewhere around there, I was tickled by Sir's banal question (I strangely loved Sir's inanities at these cosy assemblies) and stifled a giggle.

The memory returned as I was retrieving cardboard boxes from the eaves of the building in preparation for my move: large sturdy boxes capable of transporting books and pictures, imprinted with the names of obscure independent grocers who can't possibly still exist.



I pulled the brown cardboard back through the small hatch and into the attic bedroom of my flat, increasingly populated with boxes, plastic bags, miscellaneous tins, probable junk, suitcases, smaller bags and strewn clothing.  And I've continued to mull it as I've gone about counting down the last things - the last time I'll do this or go there, and regretting the things I've missed, forgotten or never got round to doing.

There’s a broader need for boxes.  When certain real-life chapters end and begin it’s difficult to perceive them in a segregated, neatly ordered way, but more natural as one linear chain of indigestible noise – which is how we experience them at the time.

“Life is just one damned thing after another.”
Elbert Hubbard US author (1856 - 1915)

It’s hard to compartmentalise, box up experience and place it to one side, to neatly shelve times, places and people before taking a deep breath and taking another step forward, having another go.  Although this is what we tell ourselves we must do, particularly if the recent history experience is unsavoury and not one we’d wish to replay – not that the brain gives us much of an option.  It's possible that comes with greater age and even more retrospection.  (I could read this in thirty years and think: oh yes, my blogging period, what a prick).

But amidst change, relatively young adulthood and eighteen-month hops of experience, memory doesn’t tend to have fixed borders.  It segues to and fro, slopping dangerously over the sides, ignoring laughably empty pleas: we’ve changed, we’re different now, we’ve moved on, that’s all in the past.

Still, we try because it’s human instinct: self-preservation through self-image, to feel as if we’re developing, evolving, learning and growing through the experience of change.  Not simply making one fuck-up after another.

This wasn’t really what our Headmaster was driving at.  He just wanted to talk about boxes.

"Um, probably Sir," Patrick said.

remembering

Blokes drive Barry nuts for being rubbish, because he considers himself less rubbish in many ways, although he’s profoundly more rubbish in others.

It’s the memory thing which really gets him.  The way he can have chats with friends and they won’t ask questions or remember anything he’s said in earlier conversations.  Sure, he thinks to himself, they have their own life in which I only play a very small fleeting role, but surely they’d remember x or y?  Surely they’d just be polite enough to ask a question or two about me?  I remember stuff they’ve said before, which they don’t always remember having told me.  They should remember some stuff too?  

No.  Is that because you’re a bit dull, Barry?  Or because they are, and they’re blokes?  Or both?

When the boot’s on the other foot and Barry is speaking to a female person, and he remembers something they mentioned once, he’s made to feel creepy for his memory.  “Wow!  You remembered that?” they say, looking at him like he was making notes or hiding in the bushes outside their front door every morning for a month.  “Um, yes,” Barry replies.  Because he does remember stuff.

This may be, in part, due to the fact that Barry doesn’t speak to all that many people so his brain is less burdened with stuff to remember, but he does still pride himself in having a strong memory when most people, especially blokes, don’t.  That’s still not ok though, if it makes you look like a creep.

The memory thing struck him again when chatting to someone he thought was going to become a good bloke friend several months ago, then their relationship wained.  Despite a handful of decent nights out, feeling like they were establishing a bond, certain things irked, Barry supposed mutually.  Enough for their manlove to both dwindle anyway. 

This saddened Barry, but not that much, which then saddened him some more: that he could just drop people, suddenly become less fussed when he realised they were a certain way, nice enough but plastic, not altogether that bright.

His ability to let friendships wither and slide was relentless.