Scraping off rust in the mental hardware

My friend Katherine said it took her three days to remember the word horizontal. She got vertical right away. But it was horizontal she needed in order to describe something. And the word refused to come.

It hid while she searched. It hid behind lentil and anise and referendum and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and thousands of other words the typical American knows.

Three days later, when she had finally stopped obsessing about it, it popped out. Horizontal! There you are. So nice of you to drop by.

For me, it was Ellen Burstyn who went missing. I said to a woman I had just met, "You look a lot like . . . " And the name wouldn't come. "You know, the woman with the short hair who played in what was that movie with Alan Alda? They met once a year and Johnny Mathis sang the theme song?"

How not to make a good first impression.

"Ellen Burstyn" I shouted to no one, a full 12 hours later, as I was standing in front of the mirror putting on makeup, a task that takes a little bit longer every day.

We laugh at these things, my friends and I. The computer's on overload, we tell one another. We've filled our hard drive. We have so many things to remember that, of course, we forget sometimes. Not a problem. Just relax and the missing word will pop up like a jack-in-the-box.

I wish.

My friend Jill gave a baby shower for her daughter-in-law, Sarah, last week. I remembered to get there. I remembered the time. And I remembered to bring a gift. So far, so good.

I remembered all the people, too: Tara and Lynn and Mary Lou and Joan and Jeannette and Patty and Maureen and Janet. Things were going along without even a hiccup in the mental hardware department until Sarah opened a box and held up a pale green baby bunting, hand-knit with a hood and a zipper up the front.

"Who gave that to you?" I asked, inspecting the fineness of the thing, the perfect stitches, the delicacy. "I've been looking everywhere for something like this," I said. "It's beautiful."

"You gave it to Christopher when he was a baby," my friend Jill said. "You made it for him more than 30 years ago."

I did?

I looked at the label. "Made with love by Beverly." I remember the label. I remember that Caryn, who taught me to knit, gave me a packet of the labels and I was so pleased because it meant that she thought I was a real knitter.

I remember the day Christopher landed in Jill's arms. I remember waiting with her and her family in her driveway in Stoughton, on a sunny morning, watching the social worker pull up the hill, into the driveway, get out, and hand Christopher to Jill. I remember his pale, pink skin and his dark blond hair and exactly how Jill looked at him and he looked at her.

I remember, too, knitting a white bunting for my daughter, Julie, working furiously, wanting to finish it before she was born.

But I do not remember this pale green bunting. I don't remember choosing its color or the yarn, wrapping it into balls, knitting, purling, sewing, attaching the label.

I phoned Caryn to ask if she remembered and she didn't, either. It's no big deal, she said. "I made an afghan for my sister about 20 years ago - she says I made it - and that it's her favorite and she still uses it because the colors are cheerful. But I don't remember making it."

These things happen, I guess. Whole chunks of days disappear like car exhaust, like breath on glass.

I used to watch a soap opera when I was first married. It was called "Bright Promise" and was about a professor named Bill, married to Martha but in love with a student named Sandy. Bill and Sandy used to meet in the library. Sandy had long, black hair. Bill always wore a tweed jacket. I remember this but I don't remember a baby bunting?

How is this possible?

Canton resident Beverly Beckham can be reached at bevbeckham@aol.com.