On Taking Notes

I reflect on memory as, at seventy-seven years of age, I ride my Ducati Multistrada motorcycle east bound between Reno, Nevada and Carlin, Nevada on 15 October 2022. As I ride, I try to anticipate the names of the waypoints along this segment of I-80, a road segment that I have ridden twenty or more times. There is a summit coming up, halfway between Reno and Carlin. I can't think of its name. About a mile before reaching this summit, the name inexplicably pops into my head: Golconda Summit. Why can I not think of the name of this spot when I am not near it?

Memory glitches like this happen to me all the time. Lacking confidence in my memory may be one of the reasons I have become such an inveterate note taker over the years. Mom died at 92 in 2011. During her 80's she, like I'm doing now, would take notes. Then, I wondered about her note taking habit. She would call for the weather report and write it down as it was being dictated. Her kitchen area would be strewn with yellow, foolscap pages of her notes. Today, considering my growing lack of confidence in my memory capability, I'm more sympathetic to Mom's practice of note taking. Like my mom, I have become an inveterate note taker.

Also, as a variation of taking notes, I keep a diary. I read a lot of biography and history. The sources of biographies are notes and records captured by the subject or by followers. I believe that all lives, including my own, can evoke stories that can entertain or uplift others. Furthermore, one's descendants can benefit from knowing the histories of their forebears. In a way, recording life histories leads to securing a form of immortality. LDS are encouraged to keep diaries and I think I was conditioned by that thinking as I was growing up. Somewhere between memory insecurity and documenting my life is the source of my note taking fetish.