This Is How Memory Works - Patricia Hampl

THIS IS HOW MEMORY WORKS



You are stepping off a train.
A wet blank night, the smell of cinders.
A gust of steam from the engine swirls
around the hem of your topcoat, around
the hand holding the brown leather valise,
the hand that, a moment ago, slicked back
the hair and then put on the fedora
in front of the mirror with the beveled
edges in the cherrywood compartment.

The girl standing on the platform
in the Forties dress
has curled her hair, she has
nylon stockings---no, silk stockings still.
Her shoulders are touchingly military,
squared by those shoulder pads
and a sweet faith in the Allies.
She is waiting for you.
She can be wearing a hat, if you like.

You see her first.
That's part of the beauty:
you get the pure, eager face,
the lyrical dress, the surprise.
You can have the steam,
the crowded depot, the camel's-hair coat,
real leather and brass clasps on the suitcase;
you can make the lights glow with
strange significance, and the black cars
that pass you are historical yet ordinary.

The girl is yours,
the flowery dress, the walk
to the streetcar, a fried egg sandwich
and a joke about Mussolini.
You can have it all:
you're in that world, the only way
you'll ever be there now, hired
for your silent hammer, to nail pictures
to the walls of this mansion
made of thinnest air.

---Patricia Hampl


Patricia Hampl's This Is How Memory Works

Each of us has moments that we'd like to live again, moments where all facets of life join in a seamless communion providing a scintillating taste of perfection. We live through monotonous days and struggle through sorrow's depths for the moments we'd like to live again. Of course, some of these banner moments are inherently tied to large accomplishments and achievements: graduations, weddings, births, job opportunities. Yes, these events are tremendous and noteworthy, but we can see them coming; there's prior warning. I'm partial to the moments that arrive unexpectedly like a forgotten ten dollar bill in the pocket of an old coat. With a tinge of mystery, the instant when all things converge into one is beyond any description I could offer. Instead of analyzing the moment with incisive language, Patricia Hampl's This Is How Memory Works takes readers into the moment. She equips us with the little details that we seem to remember, even as we wonder why we remember them. Hampl makes it clear that memory is fluid and we have the vision to look into our past and breath life back into it, plucking out the glances, the spoken words, and the everlasting emotion. As we learn in This Is How Memory Works, “You can have it all: / you're in that world,” but are memories completely adequate in transporting us back to the original moment, do they give us all of that world?

From the get-go, we are in the moment. It's not an “I” character in the poem, but a second person “you.” This empowers the reader to become the poem's main character. It is a tremendously forceful, although somewhat dangerous way to begin the poem. By making this decision to thrust readers into the poem, Hampl must fully immerse us in the place and time. She does this quite skillfully with sensory specifics. She has us notice “the smell of cinders” and “a gust of steam from the engine swirls / around the hem of your topcoat.” From holding a “brown leather valise” to slicking back “the hair and then put(ting) on the fedora,” our hand becomes a focus. We, as readers, are given tasks that we just performed. We are given possessions, a “mirror with the beveled / edges in the cherrywood compartment.” It is not a mirror with beveled edges, but it is a mirror with the beveled edges---a specific mirror that has some significance to us. Some readers might this sly and want to rebel against being molded into a character by the poet, but Hampl makes it work. She sells out (that's a compliment) and doesn't even think about going back.

After the first stanza plunks us into our character, the second stanza begins to establish the parameters of this moment. We come to see why this memory is special and remains with us. There is a “girl standing on the platform / in the Forties dress.” We remember details about her clothes, although it doesn't come easily: “she has / nylon stockings---no, silk stockings still.” The time and place become an even larger area of emphasis, with the train station looming as a site of reunion. Knowing we're in the forties and with mentions of her “sweet faith in the Allies,” the puzzle pieces are finding their grooves quite nicely. Hampl delivers the line “She is waiting for you” almost as sweeping final brush stroke. Our character is a man, presumably a soldier returning from WWII, to the woman he loves. Because it is a memory saved over years, we might also assume the woman would turn out to be the love of this man's life. That is certainly not fact, but there are hints to lead us in that direction. Another important line is the second stanza's final line: “She can be wearing a hat, if you like.” Hampl is issuing a directive that some of the details in memories are up to us, that we can shift them to our liking, that truth is contained in the essence of the moment, not in the minutiae. I struggle with this idea, particularly because it was the sensory details in the first stanza that pressed us into our character.

With all of the set-up out of the way, we arrive at the moment in the third stanza. It's written in such a way that I see it clear as a scene on a towering movie screen. “You see her first” triggers the man to stand tall and peer through the crowds until he spots her. This right here is the moment, how he gets a glance of her before she realizes. We're allowed into this moment he owns, realizing with him that his private view of the woman he loves, seeing her first, well “that's part of the beauty: / you get the pure, eager face, / the lyrical dress, the surprise.” I'm in awe of these lines and how they simply and wholly capture a once-in-a-lifetime moment; Hampl does a superb job writing this memory back to life. And because of the moment's importance in our character's life, he remembers the quotidian elements surrounding him: “the steam, / the crowded depot, the camel's-hair coat, / real leather and brass clasps on the suitcase.” It is his memory; if he wants he “can make the lights glow with / strange significance.” The lights are already lit, but he (and we as readers) can decide if they take on some lasting meaning. It's almost impossible to believe, but we have some control over our memories.

The poem concludes with a focus on this idea of control over our memories. “The girl is yours” and “you can have it all: you're in that world.” Still, whatever control we have over our memories is inconsequential. We can alter some of the minor details or draw conclusions about how something small was ultimately a symbol of things to come. This is the equivalent of sending a soldier off to war with a bee-bee gun. Largely powerless and ornamental, “the only way / you'll ever be there now” is in the necessary task of remembering so as not to forget. Hampl has us take a “silent hammer” and “nail pictures / to the walls of this mansion / made of thinnest air.” It's a fitting metaphor to end the poem: memory pictures within the house of our minds.

When you strip everything extraneous away it's not a question of if memories can take us back to those joyous moments that passed by like moon rockets, but more so it's a question of if we have anything else at our disposal. There is nothing I know of besides memories that allows us to relive events gone by. And as we age, even our memories that we hold tight become frayed around the edges, discolored and disfigured at certain parts. It's been said before, but I'll say it again: no one is immune to time. Knowing this, we embrace what we do have: the majestic bittersweet construct of memory.