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ANYWAY, the point of this blog post is that I have a story that has made me think about memory and the actions of memory-making more closely. Particularly in a constructed and plural sense. Last Friday night we had my husband's 92 year old nanna come over and have dinner with us. Alfio arranged with the nursing home and picked her up in the late afternoon. Dinner was a great success, although the cannelloni needed extra sauce as it had soaked up every last bit in the oven and some people thought the brownies were overcooked (although I love crunchy food - LOVE really darkly toasted bread). At the end of the night my brother came over and I was outside talking to him. Nanna and another family member were getting ready to leave and were standing at the door. My husband was unlocking the car and had gone to talk to my brother, who was close to the front door. What happened next was quite unpleasant. Ignoring all advice and pleas, nanna walked down the three front steps in the dark (we have a sensor light). But she missed the last step and fell face-first into the concrete. I vaguely remember seeing her walking down the steps and started to move towards her, but there was no time before she fell. Needless to say, nanna's face-plant into the concrete ended in blood. Quite a bit. And a broken pinkie finger.
While we were trying to clean her up in the house, nanna started to talk about going to the 'club'. That she needed to go to the 'club'. We thought she was raving, but have since found out this is her name for the nursing home. However, when she was taken back there that night, she did not recognise the place. However, what happened yesterday when we went to visit her at the home, was what was shocking to me. Yes, she had two black eyes - with the kind of black that only old old people have. She had not grazes on her hands and so did not use her limbs to protect her face when she fell - a reflex for the rest of us. So her face did bear the brunt of the injuries. But she was talkative and as happy as she has ever been. It was her memory and recall of the incident that was shocking.
I have been around old people with memory issues before. My uncle had dementia and when I came to Melbourne to live in 2000, he did not know who I was. However, he did remember me from visit to visit as Frank's daughter, but I was not ever sure if this was him remembering the words, or the facts. However, yesterday nanna told a story of how a doctor at the nursing home had hurt her and that he had pushed her into water. She was surprised that we knew about the incident and her injuries. My husband tried to tell her that she was at our house and he brought her to the nursing home with the injuries, but she would have nothing of it. To nanna, the hated doctor (not sure he had a name) at the nursing home was responsible. Alfio was never there, but the other family member who was also at our house that night, was. Nanna has previously complained about the nursing home to us - that she has been left there and so on. I have also heard stories of her beating up the other residents. We also heard last night that this is not the first time she has fallen outside of the nursing home and not the first time she has remembered something other that what actually happened.
There are a lot of things I think about this story. There is the made up story - the remembered story. Although I do not speak Italian, I watched nanna draw a picture of where and how she fell yesterday when we went to visit. The way she was communicating what had happened was quite clear and detailed. I think about how she hates the place and how she wanted to go down the stairs at our house because she believed she would be alright. I know she knows that she is 92, but I wonder if she realises how this impacts on her ability to do things. Nanna's remembering is a story with a clear protagonist and antagonist. It is also a repeated story. I wonder why this story exists and why it is repeated. It think about how we all repeat stories all the time, in telling and often in action. I wonder how this memory is actually remembered in her head - if it is a 'knowing' or a 'seeing' memory. I also wonder about the forgetting about the real story. I guess this might not be a deliberate action, but I wonder if this forgetting has any links to forgetting in her past. Many people forget things that are painful to them. It is not a deliberate thing perhaps, but it is still an activity that has been performed. I also think about what the 'real story' is - is it my story? Does it matter if the story is real? I think about the discussion that was had at AERI about the concept of authentic. How can this concept be applied to nanna's version of events? Hmmm..something new to ponder some more.
In relation to my research I think about the acts of remembering, but forgot about the acts of forgetting. Some of the data is revealing the practices and identity being created around remembering, deliberate remembering that is wrapped up in social communication. This remembering is about construction and observation of social acts by others that contribute to society. When a You-ser creates a video, they are performing a role of remembering. When they post the video and the Youtube community gets a chance to comment and post video as responses, these are acts of group remembering - in situated action. Youtube is then a performative space. The layers of remembering are built up over time and through different technologies. There are different ways to remember as well - such as the video that the You-ser keeps on their hard drives at home versus that which is on Youtube itself. The forgetting is also really interesting. I had thought about the forgetting in terms of disposal, but the disposal of a video is not necessarily about forgetting. When a You-ser takes down a video, it is not so that people or themselves can forget. The word forget is now challenging me - I will have to think about it more. It is an action, a process and also an outcome. I will come back to this in the near future I think. It will be part of the thesis chapter 3.
