Finding Me, Finding You

Last week following my uncle's funeral service, a woman inquired about some of my upcoming work.  "What new writing do you have being published in the coming months?" she asked.

"Well," I said. "Let me see . . . ."

I reeled off five or six pieces--some poems, some fiction, some essays--that were slated to be released soon.  And then she asked, "And where can I find these?"

I suppose she was hoping I would have an answer . . . but for the life of me I could not remember the magazines or their respective names.  "There's a poem about breast cancer," I said, "but . . . well, I don't remember the magazine."  "And I have a memoir to be released soon . . . but it's rather eclectic and the magazine, as I recall, had the word biography in the title."

I hate questions that make me work for answer.  I'm not built to remember yesterday, much less to recall the names of all the magazines that give me a favorable nod or an okie-dokie.  By the time I get word from an editor that he liked one of my pieces and wants to publish it, I have already forgotten what it was I sent him, or when, or why . . . and the thumbs-up is as shocking to me as discovering plutonium.

And there have been, believe it or not, one or two times when I have discovered myself in a magazine and thought, "Holy Cow!  I forgot they were going to publish this one!"

Like Forrest Gump, I'm not a smart man . . . but I know what love is.

But I don't love my memory loss.  I suppose it's stashed somewhere among the history.