The church steeples I meditated on as an 8-yr-old from street level. The building has been torn down. Distant memory is like an out-of-focus photograph. “Is that Grandma in the background, or is it Aunt Jane?”
“I’m not sure, but that house is definitely on fire!”
People will argue whether that is Grandma or Aunt Jane even though some details don’t matter in the bigger picture. Unless, of course, one of them is suspected of arson.
I have a memory of sitting on a desk in a police station when I was a toddler. I had been found wandering around unattended, and while the police looked for my parents, I was sucking on a red lollipop. But was it red? It doesn’t matter really. But my mother says it was my brother who was lost at the police station. More important than whether it was me or my brother is the ‘fact’ that I had that memory, and it had some significance. Now that memory is more than 60 years old. Why have I clung to it, while I can’t remember what I did yesterday? It is interesting to me, but I will likely never know why.
My brothers and sisters are always recounting stories of things I did to them as their older brother. I often was in charge of them while my mother worked and my father was places unknown. Was I really that mean? I suppose I was because my only tool back then was fear, like a bear standing tall and fiercely growling. The real story may not be my lousy babysitting techniques, but the fact we were in that situation.
Some things are burned in your memory so deeply, you can recall every detail. At least that’s how it feels. I remember waking up very early as a nine-year-old looking out of the window at the pyramid shaped twin towers of a Polish church across I-70. The background was a pinkish-orange sky almost free of clouds. It was quiet, even with the highway next door. It must have been a Sunday. I remember that moment because it was so different than the chaos of living with five younger siblings. I didn’t know about meditation then, but I think that is what I was doing.
Memory is enhanced when it involves something out of the ordinary. My first train ride, my first kiss, my first jet solo, my wedding, the births of my children. I’ll never forget walking home from my job as a carhop at 17 years of age at 2 AM in the morning. There was a gravesite next to the road, high enough on a hill to see the silhouettes of gravestones against the moonlit fog. Already in a state of nervous anticipation, a pack of 3-4 dogs came charging upon me, snarling and barking at my heels! I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t outrun them so I stood steady as they circled, seeming to dare me. Fear! Eventually, I started taking small steps with them still at my heels. Finally, they became bored with me and left. What relief!
These are extraordinary events, easy to recall. But I also remember taking a photo of my first niece, maybe one-year-old, playing in clover over 47 years ago. It’s somewhere, but it is also in my head. Then there was the time I sat in Forest Park in St. Louis watching construction workers build a tall condo building across from its western border. I just sat there as a fourth-grader, mesmerized. I must have done things like that dozens of times, but that moment is stamped in my head. It was summer, the trees were full and waving in the breeze, and I sat on a hill alone, and watched. But I don’t remember my first day in high school or where I lived half my life. We moved often.
My memories as an adult are much more pleasant than my childhood, but I still struggle with my memory. I always have, so it’s not just my age. Because of that, I take a lot of photos, especially of family! Looking at older pictures, I am reminded, not just of the photo, but the day the photo was taken. That tells me that our brain is like a computer’s memory. I never want to forget the growing stages of my grandchildren. If I waited too long, I may forget. So I take photos.The info is there, you just need to know how to find it.
Photos are my password to memories.
“I’m not sure, but that house is definitely on fire!”
People will argue whether that is Grandma or Aunt Jane even though some details don’t matter in the bigger picture. Unless, of course, one of them is suspected of arson.
I have a memory of sitting on a desk in a police station when I was a toddler. I had been found wandering around unattended, and while the police looked for my parents, I was sucking on a red lollipop. But was it red? It doesn’t matter really. But my mother says it was my brother who was lost at the police station. More important than whether it was me or my brother is the ‘fact’ that I had that memory, and it had some significance. Now that memory is more than 60 years old. Why have I clung to it, while I can’t remember what I did yesterday? It is interesting to me, but I will likely never know why.
My brothers and sisters are always recounting stories of things I did to them as their older brother. I often was in charge of them while my mother worked and my father was places unknown. Was I really that mean? I suppose I was because my only tool back then was fear, like a bear standing tall and fiercely growling. The real story may not be my lousy babysitting techniques, but the fact we were in that situation.
Some things are burned in your memory so deeply, you can recall every detail. At least that’s how it feels. I remember waking up very early as a nine-year-old looking out of the window at the pyramid shaped twin towers of a Polish church across I-70. The background was a pinkish-orange sky almost free of clouds. It was quiet, even with the highway next door. It must have been a Sunday. I remember that moment because it was so different than the chaos of living with five younger siblings. I didn’t know about meditation then, but I think that is what I was doing.
Memory is enhanced when it involves something out of the ordinary. My first train ride, my first kiss, my first jet solo, my wedding, the births of my children. I’ll never forget walking home from my job as a carhop at 17 years of age at 2 AM in the morning. There was a gravesite next to the road, high enough on a hill to see the silhouettes of gravestones against the moonlit fog. Already in a state of nervous anticipation, a pack of 3-4 dogs came charging upon me, snarling and barking at my heels! I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t outrun them so I stood steady as they circled, seeming to dare me. Fear! Eventually, I started taking small steps with them still at my heels. Finally, they became bored with me and left. What relief!
These are extraordinary events, easy to recall. But I also remember taking a photo of my first niece, maybe one-year-old, playing in clover over 47 years ago. It’s somewhere, but it is also in my head. Then there was the time I sat in Forest Park in St. Louis watching construction workers build a tall condo building across from its western border. I just sat there as a fourth-grader, mesmerized. I must have done things like that dozens of times, but that moment is stamped in my head. It was summer, the trees were full and waving in the breeze, and I sat on a hill alone, and watched. But I don’t remember my first day in high school or where I lived half my life. We moved often.
My memories as an adult are much more pleasant than my childhood, but I still struggle with my memory. I always have, so it’s not just my age. Because of that, I take a lot of photos, especially of family! Looking at older pictures, I am reminded, not just of the photo, but the day the photo was taken. That tells me that our brain is like a computer’s memory. I never want to forget the growing stages of my grandchildren. If I waited too long, I may forget. So I take photos.The info is there, you just need to know how to find it.
Photos are my password to memories.
