Gen X: An Unknown Factor, Until It Isn't
I wrote my book 1912: Poems of Time, Place & Memory to explore two things: 1) How time, place and memory make us who we are and 2) how it all shifts around together.
Our memories of who, what, when, and where change with every telling of a story, and whatever the story is right now becomes a part of our identity — until it changes again.
The following is an excerpt from my book 1912’s first section, Generation X.
“During my childhood, we kids rode our bikes to school and spent entire days and summers outside in the woods, at the swimming pool, or at the movies.
Our downtown theater, in particular, offered a curated selection of foreign and art films, along with science fiction, fantasy favorites, and adult films—one of which we accidentally saw when our parents thought it was a kids’ movie because it was animated.
It was a time when children were without a lot of adult supervision, as evidenced by the name given to our generation, X, an unknown factor.”
Who would I be without my experiences in that downtown theater? The public swimming pool? Or the woods where I grew up?
Our stories define us. They may or may not be “true”. Very often two or more people remember the same experience differently. Was the car a Peugeot or a Mercedes? Did I walk home after I fell off my bike or get a ride?
One reason memories may be inconsistent is because different people see the same thing from distinct viewpoints. But it also might be related to the passage of time and how our brain associates things together.
Sometimes it can make a difference how you remember, other times not so much. For example, one year, I met a group of people doing a fashion photoshoot for a Dutch magazine at Sacre Coeur in Paris.
I originally remembered the makeup artist approaching me to comment on my drawing. I remembered it this way because I got together with him later.
But after thinking about it, I wondered if it was actually the photo stylist who instigated our meeting, because she was in charge of the photo shoot, even though I still did fondly remember hooking up with that makeup-artist guy.
And then when I looked at my journal from that time, I read that according to my self then, it was actually the hair stylist, an unassuming man whom I liked fine — but didn’t hook up with — and who did everyone’s hair, including mine.
And then that memory falls into place. But what if I hadn’t written in my journal, preserving the original (maybe) memory? In this case, regardless, I had a great time that day and does it matter who came up to me first?
Rewriting Memory
You may have heard of the practice of going back to your young self and reassuring yourself, and rewriting a difficult or negative experience you had.
And you may have heard how it can somehow reverberate through time, changing how you feel now. And maybe, like me, you even wondered how that can be.
Personally, I wondered how you could ever believe yourself again if you tried to change what happened in your own memory.
But you don’t exactly change the memory. You just open it up for more detail. And it does change things, when you shift a memory on purpose.
For example, I recall falling off my bike when I was a kid riding on a country road. My predominant memory from that moment was worrying about being injured and how I would ride home.
And in the present moment, I go there and purposely think back and reassure that kid, and tell her it’s going to be fine, even if she has to walk home, because I know now that it was.
And then I have more space in my memory, and now I also remember being the kid who enjoyed the blue sky for as long as I wanted before getting up and walking home. And that feels different.
Generation X might have a lot to re-remember. But everything is malleable in a certain way, even the past. We are X — a factor that is unknown until it is solved.
The below poem is from 1912: Poems of Time, Place & Memory.
The Scorcher
This is no suburban cul-de-sac moment.
We live on a dirt road in the country
with gravel in the driveway
and I am trying to ride a bike.
Try riding in gravel over potholes
when you are six years old.
But I don’t know.
I think I’m just not very good
at riding a bike.
At the turn of the century
(the twentieth century),
the bicycle was a new invention.
They called it the Scorcher
it was so fast.
But today the only scorcher is this summer day
and I’m trying again and again
to ride this damn bike
so I can ride to school instead of walking
the two miles down winding country roads
to the one-room schoolhouse
when second grade begins in the fall.
My dad supportively holds the back
of the rickety red-and-white contraption
while I move the rusty pedals with my sandaled feet
handlebars all over the place.
Then the crunch of gravel as the bike turns in front
and falls over again and again.
Now I am riding pretty good
until I panic and freeze
at the end of the driveway
and crash right into the barbed-wire fence.
I get up and keep riding numb
my flesh, blood, and the fabric of my ripped skirt
left behind in the sharp wires.
My body is scraped and bleeding
by the end of the day
but I’m riding the bike.
And when the warm part of fall arrives
I’m riding home from school
on the three-inch-wide asphalt shoulder when
a hay truck whisks past me.
And light as a feather
the wind from the truck
lifts me off the road.
My bike and I slowly float
into a rock and weed lined gulley.
When I open my eyes
from the warm scratchy ground
I look up at the sky
clouds drifting past
blinding sun
the buzzing of insects
and trills of red-winged blackbirds
on wires
as I lie there bleeding in the ditch
for as long as I feel like.
I leave another part of myself there
and pick up my bike
keep riding home
blood trailing behind me from
elbows, head and knees and
a two-inch gash on my leg
already starting to scab over.
I still have the scar.