Replay

A few days ago, as I was walking to work, I had an idea. One of those that make you excited. One of those you’re absolutely certain that you won’t forget. But I did.

I was listening to something on the iPod that I had ripped from Swedish radio. Each summer they run a series called, in direct translation, “Summer Talkers,” where different people are invited to talk, for 90 minutes, about anything they like. Politicians, musicians, writers, scientists, etc. I listened to an episode by the Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh.

As I was lying in bed that night, I tried to remember the lost idea. So I replayed the memory of walking and listening to this architect talking.

I have read some about the brain, so I know about the extraordinary capacity it has. But I was fascinated to be able to retrieve so much detail, and so many subtle things I almost hadn’t noticed as they happened.

It was almost as if the memories were more vivid than the reality that created them.

I remembered the middle-aged woman on her bicycle, that thanked me with a smile as I let her pass by, which made me smile a while afterwards. She said something I didn’t pick up as I had the earphones on.

I remembered how the light fell as I turned the corner by the pizza place. The people I saw and what they looked like.

And I remembered exactly what was said on the iPod as I waited to cross the street, as I turned the corner by the second-hand bookshop, and so on.

But I couldn’t remember the lost idea.

The next morning I tried to replay the radio program exactly as I had listened to it the first, and it was fascinating how I knew exactly if I had to walk slower or faster to synchronize: I was only a few steps ahead of where I was the first time I listened to it.

It was a strange feeling. As if I could repeat history.

I got more and more excited as I got closer to where I had had the idea, but I had to keep from walking faster, in pace with my excitement. Finally, I was there, just about to turn the corner.

Nothing.

I couldn’t understand what it was Wingårdh had said that had sparked the idea. I must have been thinking about other things, because this part of his program wasn’t very interesting.

It was probably not a great idea. But if it was, it will come back.