Found a Notebook from a Few Years Ago

I led a writing group a few years ago and just stumbled upon the notebook in which I wrote my writing excercise. I think we used prompts from Natalie Goldberg, but I am too lazy to look it up just now. This one, as I recall, involved writing "I remember..." and then letting the stream of consciousness take over. After five minutes or so, switch to "I don't remember...." This is what came out:

I remember the boathouse in Canada before it sank into the river. I remember being in the upstairs room above the boats, where we used to play music and hang around on lumpy mattresses with old-fashioned springs and listen to an old Victrola, which had 78 rpm records by Shirley Temple, and we used to crank it up by turning a handle around and around, and when the music slowed, we had to crank it again. I remember "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and some other scratchy records with tinny voices and happy songs.

I remember my mom sitting beside the Victrola in a rocking chair. She was crying and I didn't ask why. Or maybe I did. But I knew why she was crying. It was because my dad didn't love her anymore, and she knew that her marriage was over. I remember taking two boyfriends to the cottage. One was MK, a Russian boy from New Jersey with luscious brown hair and big brown eyes and dark perpetually tanned skin. I remember his fingers and how he could bend them backwards. I remember going canoeing with him once, and he said I would make a terrible Indian because my paddle kept hitting the side of the canoe. I remember when I liked him still, but he stopped liking me, and it hurt.

I don't remember. I don't remember when I knew that he didn't really want to be together anymore. I don't remember really breaking up with him. I don't remember what made him change the way he felt. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember being small and running in the wading pool. I've seen old movies of me doing that. I don't remember what happened to those old movies.

I don't remember the times when my parents really seemed to love each other. I don't remember the times when they really seemed to love me back then when I was growing up. I don't remember what it felt like when I found out my parents were splitting up. I don't remember when my dad stopped coming home. I don't remember when I stopped coming home. Maybe because it wasn't home anymore.