Mystery of Memory

When considering my memories of moments that have shaped my life, I have realized that everything major that has happened in the last four years has occurred while I was in a car.  I do not assume that this means that there is some sort of cars causing me to have life changing experiences; however, I do find it interesting that it all occurred in the same setting.  Even more interesting is the fact the detail that stands out in life shaping moments is where it happened. 

            During fall break of my first year of college, I landed in the Cleveland airport at midnight. My dad picked me up.  All I really remember that night is getting on the highway and my dad telling me that my grandpa had passed away that morning.  The lights on the side of the road blurred past as my life was changed forever. While that day shaped my future, all that stands out to me from that moment is the fact that I was in a vehicle. 

            The day I got home for Christmas break my sophomore year, my boyfriend was supposed to meet me at my house before we went on a date.  He took me out to coffee and then drove me back to my house. Before I could get out of the car, he said he needed to talk to me. After a two hour conversation in an unheated car in the middle of December, our relationship was over.  Another major moment in my life, and the thing that stands out to me upon reflection is my location. This too changed my life, but for some reason a lot of the details are blurry.  Maybe the rush of emotions I felt on these two days clouded my ability to recall major details. 

            What this strange recollection of cars and events has shown me that my experience of a moment in my life does not necessarily correlate to the manner in which I understand how that past event shaped my life.  When I was experiencing those moments, my life felt like it had completely fallen out of my control; it is only through reflection that I was able to make meaning out of my memories, even if all of the details that stood out did not make sense at the time.

            While these memories of my past may seem a bit incoherent, they are things that I have come to understand as important to shaping who I have become to be.  By looking back, I am able to make sense out of the chaos that is memory. This is one of the things that Jacqueline Woodson is able to do with the form of Brown Girl Dreaming. Instead of a traditional narrative structure, she tells the story of her life through a series of poems that describe events and other experiences. This form allows her to break free of a traditional linear structure that dictates the passage of time.  Although the majority of the does seem to progress in the order of events, the poetic form does not require them to progress linearly.  She has mentioned the passing of her grandfather, and afterwards she mentions the memories coming back, but there is not really an indication of how much time has passed in between the events that she is recounting (Woodson, 276 and 288).  Because each poem is an individual glimpse in time, they lake the overall coherence of a typical narrative.  This makes the time that the reader is meant to understand is not as clear as it may be in a novel with a clear sequence of events where one leads directly into the other. 

            The unusual structure of the narrative also allows for an interesting blending of events.  Poetry allows Woodson to focus very specifically on the details that truly stood out to her in her life, rather than trying to reconstruct everything to paint a picture that a reader can clearly see.  This more accurately mirrors the way in which memory works.  She makes connections between the events that stood out and how they shaped her.  When she first saw Angela Davis on TV, she notes how it affected herself and Maria: “We are not afraid to die, Maria and I shout, fists high,/for what we believe in ./ But both of us know—we’d rather keep believing/ and live” (303).  This memory not only shows how a major movement in the United States had an impact on her life, but it is also full of details that situate the reader in her life. It combines her own history with a history that is greater than her own story.  At the same time, this moment shows how she is able to look back on her previous actions and understand them in a different way.  She has a full understanding of her own beliefs now that she is able to look back at her previous actions and interpret.