The Relationship between the Act of Remembering and the Study of Narrative

by rememberingcycling

The immediate critique of the premise of this blog will undoubtedly be that not everyone remembers in story form or some other abstract exception-to-the-rule kind of objection. The point is that once a memory is shared with someone else it becomes final. It is in this final form that memory is synonymous with story. This means that explaining what happened in a race you saw on TV does not really differ from telling the story of a race in which you participated, a race that was not televised to anyone. In both cases the past experience becomes a narrative in its final and communicable form. To an important extent this also happens when a memory becomes thetic in the middle of a race. Even when a cyclist is not telling a/the story to a spectator, teammate or coach, she is telling it to herself. Coming into the last ten kilometers, it becomes necessary to evaluate what remains in the tank. You have to review what has happened in the race. Choices are made in regards to the narrative that do not make any material difference in the race, but it’s no secret that what happens in your head on your bicycle manifests itself in your performance. What events are worth remembering in the heat of the moment when a split second decision could decide the race? Which parts of the race were left out of the story? From what perspective is the story told? While these aspects of the remembered story do not directly affect the outcome of the race, they do have an immediate effect on the decisions making process of the rider.