I’ve been thinking about memory lately for the latest project that I am working on and it occurs to me that memory loss leaves very real and recognizable tracks, although they might not be what we expect. I tried to imagine what it is like to have forgotten a significant life experience and then I pondered the result of that gap, and how the person might think about the loss.
The aching gap that is left after the memory has been lost, or excised, has no precise shape and form, it seems to me. The person may well know they are missing something, but they would not necessarily have any idea what it might be, any more than a puddle knows the shape of the last hole. Likewise, when a memory returns, in that often abrupt and disconcerting way, the person who is suddenly fuller with lost details would not necessary know that the memory wasn’t there before. The new memory is incorporated immediately into felt experience, and the person is none the wiser as to that what they are not experiencing is any different than what they had moments before.
Both memory and its loss leave no tracks. The only way the memory comes to consciousness is the memory that we don’t want found. Then, even if portions of the memory are 
missing, the gap sings to the conscious mind, a constant reminder of what we don’t want to think about. The tracks of memory then, as are what is remembered, not what is lost or was lost. Even if the memory has been deliberately thrown in the canal, even if a weight has been tied to the sack that holds it, memory has a way of resurfacing. The canal might be drained by the local authorities, or a magnet fisher might be prodding where they are not welcome. A child might go swimming ill-advisedly, or drop their toy in and not realize how deep the canal is, or how much debris has already been pitched in that made the bottom slick and treacherous. Canals near the sea are more honest, in a way, for they are flushed of the light material twice a day, leaving on the heaviest lodes for last, the memories that 
root into the mud, the memories that once brought to the surface are but reminders of a bygone era, weapons from a fight long since forgotten, jewellery thrown away once the gift had soured.
