Nonfiction by Tracey Ormerod
I don’t remember packing, but my things must have been on the truck: the plastic-yellow colander I still use every day, the one he cursed while poking the holes with a corkscrew to dislodge spaghetti starch; and the crock pot—just last week, it slow-stewed the roast.
I do remember what couldn’t go on the truck: the propane tank. Over thirty years later, the moving guy no longer has a face but I can still see his burly body hauling it over to where I stood and dropping it at my feet. The lawn muffled the thud. “It’s full … can’t go on the truck.”
He left it there and went back to lift off the truck ramp. He was ready to leave. I turned to my mother in a panic. “What do I do with it? Do I just leave it here?”
He softened and came back. “Here, you open it up, like this.”
He turned the valve. The tank whistled.
~
Researchers say we alter our memories every time we look.
Quantum particles are like that too. Scientists can’t watch them without changing them, so they’ll never know how they behave when no one is looking. Nonetheless, they can’t help themselves.
Maybe that’s why countries and cultures carve their collective memories deep into stone and story.
Families collect them too. They share ‘remember whens’ that hold their tales together, until there’s a rupture and the timeline becomes a shredded thread of itself.
~
In a review[1] of the film, Women Talking, Eliza Smith reflects on her missing memory of leaving her first marriage:
“I may not be able to recall my own leaving moment … but I do remember the precarious, optimistic feeling of leaving one world for another that didn’t quite exist yet.”
She mentions a friend who can’t remember her leaving moment either. So, for the first time, I learn there’s at least two other women like me.
How many of us are out there? A collective without a memory.
~
I don’t remember why he didn’t get the tank, except maybe the barbecue had been a gift from my side of the family, like the bone china and crystal bowls.
I also don’t recall where my two-year-old was that day.
And then there’s the house keys. How did they get dropped off with the real estate lawyer? I’m not even sure how we sold our house; I don’t remember any sales agents or buyers.
So many details that would’ve been important at the time, while the only other thing I can remember is a song that played on the car radio: Wilson Phillips singing “Hold On, things can change. Things can go your way …”
~
We leave home. We get left—they say there’s fifty ways to leave a lover. Sometimes, we leave the country. There’s also the countless tiny leavings, like after a dinner date or a party.
We arrive. We leave. Over and over and over until, at last, we depart dearly.
~
I don’t remember why the mover left the tank with me, except maybe he was hungry and took a lunchbreak. It was full and emptying it would take time.
Even when gas weighs heavy in a tank, it comes out invisible, but I stood there and stared down at it like there was something to see while it hissed like a snake in a pressure cooker, making my leaving loud for the neighbours watching from behind their bay window sheers.
Silent together, we couldn’t help but watch as it grew quiet and the frost spread all over the tank, the kind that burns when you touch it.
[1] Smith, Eliza. “The Most Satisfying Me Too Movie Yet.” The Cut, January 20, 2023. https://www.thecut.com/article/women-talking-me-too-movie.html.
Tracey Ormerod is a Canadian writer and photographer. After growing up in the wilds of the city, she now lives among the forests and farms of rural Ontario. At times an accountant, business analyst, website consultant, and classroom teacher, she is now enjoying a writing life. Read more at https://traceyormerod.com.
