I have always had an extraordinary memory, both visual and aural, and my claims have met with disbelief. I can remember scenes while lying in a bassinette, before my eyes were fully focused. I was describing one such memory to my mother and told her of the blue and pink ribbons that were threaded through the wicker. She said I was wrong, that there were blue ribbons for my brothers, but that mine were pink. This confused me because I saw both colors vividly. She called me later that night to say that I was right. That when I was born she could not bear to remove the blue ribbons and intertwined them with pink ones, that it was my younger sisters that had only pink ribbons.
Memory helped enormously during my school years, especially when it came to taking tests. For answers I could read the page in my mind's eye, or hear my teacher's voice. This ability is often confused with genius, but I learned through life (and I am now very, very old) that it is the ability to reason and put your knowledge to use that demonstrates intelligence. Memory can be nothing more than a parlor trick.
