Total Recall - a preface

Trying to recall and document memories that are worth recalling and documenting is a valiant but nearly futile task. Unfortunately, the recall of these memories is too often inadequate to actually fuel a worthy documentation of the excitement felt when having an experience worth documentation. I suppose it can be likened to describe eating a perfect steak. Writing or speaking of a perfect steak becomes a barrage of half-cocked adjectives and superlatives (e.g., juicy, tender, crispy, sultry, etc.). Once items pass the bucal cavity they will never taste the same again, and the future recall of the taste, and enjoyment thereof, could never rival that of the moment. Such is the case with memories… especially good ones. The main character in Wallace Stegner’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘The Angel of Repose’ describes this as a “Doppler effect”. He views it as a train or car driving by us, or through us, that can never be experienced the same way leaving as it is approach. We often expect objectivity when we know very well that experiences that are worth remembering, moreover documenting, will likely change us and therefore cannot be viewed from the point at which we experienced them. However, document we must. Express I must, and express I will.