Speech given by Thomas Fry '09
Carleton College Commencement, June 13, 2009

When I was very young, I thought I could remember everything. I thought that everyone could. I thought saying “I don’t remember” was the same as saying “that never happened.” So when I asked my parents if they remembered the game we played the other day, or last Friday’s episode of Sesame Street, and they could not, I thought they were calling me a liar. As a three year-old, this was a very difficult position for me—how do you argue with someone who seems to know everything, even if you’re right? “You do remember,” I would say, tears welling, “you were there!” Faced with a toddler on the verge of tears, my parents, however devoted they were to my education in the ways of the “real world,” would eventually cave, “Oh, of course!” they would say, feigning revelation, “Now I remember!” and thus another of my early epistemological crises would be averted.

It did not take me many years to realize not only that my own memory was fallible along with everyone else’s, and that my parents were total liars, but also that forgetting could be just as useful as remembering. I made “I forgot” the two most important words in my vocabulary, my motto, my battle-cry. If I didn’t want to clean my room, “I forgot” to. I got bad grades on tests because “I forgot” to study. “I forgot” dates with girls I didn’t particularly like (and no, I did not make that last one up. I was thirteen; her name was Erin Massey).

Through all this, I continued to hold the rather childish belief that, without putting forth any effort myself, my memory would somehow latch onto the important stuff for me, that that toddler was still in me, somewhere, taking it all in. In this, as in so many other things in this first phase of my life, I was terribly, terribly wrong. Already, at twenty-two, I have lost track of the number of lessons I’ve had to learn twice, the friendships I’ve neglected, the people I’ve let down (often in conjunction with myself), to say nothing of all those forgotten vistas and enlightening conversations, all because of the fatal assumption that remembering the important stuff is easy. It’s not. However powerful we all imagine our minds to be, we have all doubtless stumbled upon the sad truth that that power is finite. Human memory is far too limited to be automatic. It is the result of conscious choice; of decisions about what’s important; of trying, in the face of constant change, to create something lasting. These memories we choose to make are more than mental snapshots; they shape what we believe, how we act, the friends we keep, and the ones we leave behind. They are, more than anything else, what makes us us. If this sounds like a banal platitude, it is. One of the best things about days like today is that they remind us that banal platitudes become so because they bear repeating; because they’re important, and true.

The point I’m trying to make, here—and yes, I’m finally to the “Carleton” portion of my speech—is that today, our time here together ends. We won’t be seeing all that much of one another anymore. We won’t be walking past the library or the Bald Spot every day. We’ll move, find jobs, and raise families. The facts of our daily lives that have kept Carleton lodged in our consciousness for the past four years will become a thing of the past, and we will all have to choose what about this place is important to us; what about it we’re going to remember. We cannot take these choices lightly; we cannot afford to assume that, as the most formative and challenging years of many of our lives, these years can’t be forgotten, can’t be subsumed into the gray, indecipherable amalgam of our “past.” If we let them, they will.

And so, I guess, I’m up here to do my part. I will always remember the morning I first moved into Musser, my favorite professors, how I met the best friends I’ve ever had, and the times we spent together. I’ll remember the lakes, the view from Bell Hill, my first house. I will also remember waking up that first night in Musser to the blast of a train whistle and feeling incredibly, painfully alone. I’ll remember making mistakes I was sure would appall said favorite professors, and chase said best friends away. I’ll remember my first house, which, it turns out, was both a good and a bad memory, and also probably a mistake.

It’s not for me to say what any of you will remember, whether, like mine, your good memories will far outweigh the bad. Indeed, perhaps, it is not yet time for me to say what I will remember. We still have this day left to us, to be together, to take in what this place has to offer us, and to celebrate what we have offered to it. I have no doubt that all of us can do great things with our lives; perhaps that’s why I’ve devoted so few words to the subject. In any case, as we bask in the hard-earned glory of this day, as we look forward to the sundry unknown futures ahead of us, I hope we can all find time, before we leave each other forever, to stand in an old favorite place, take a deep breath, and remember.