WRW - Selective Memory

I don’t quite remember many of the events of my childhood – and often don’t remember things that have happened quite recently.  I often have to rely on the recollection of others who were there with me.  This has always puzzled me, and continues to. 

It’s not as if I don’t have a good memory.  I have an excellent memory for things external to my own existence – particularly objective facts.  In the study, and to a lesser degree, the practice of engineering, this type of memory served me well.  And I’m a dangerous competitor when watching Jeopardy – and can occasionally run entire categories.  And I am just flat dangerous with games like Trivial Pursuit.  But ask me where I went to breakfast yesterday, what I had, or who I was with, and I can often be hit-or-miss. 

My brothers and sisters know this well about me, and use it to their advantage when recounting occurrences from our childhood.  Sometimes they do this in fun, knowing I am somewhat hobbled in my ability to counter their version of events; and unfortunately, this is sometimes not so much in fun – and I am likewise not fully able to defend myself against accusations of an infraction they may say I committed forty-five years ago. 

This issue extends to names as well.  I’ve heard that for many people, their deepest fear is public speaking.  Not mine.  Though public speaking may tense me up a little, what terrifies me is introducing people to one another.  If I know I’m going to do that, I rehearse it, I memorize their names … even if I know them well, and I visualize pulling off the introduction correctly, and the incredible relief of not embarrassing myself, and (more importantly) not embarrassing somebody I know well, but whose name I forget when it matters most. 

I am candid about this with my friends.  Since I can’t be better than I am in this regard (though I continue to work on it), I at least mitigate the harm by forewarning people I care about, so that this may be an opportunity for humor, rather than humiliation. 

In my effort to understand this dichotomy between excellent trivia skills, and a poor memory for myself and those around me, I have wondered whether different types of memories are stored in different part of the brain.  Or is it a matter of focus?  Am I responding to early training, where I was praised and rewarded for intellectual prowess, but never spurred to develop these key skills that are such excellent social lubricants.  I don’t suppose I’ll even resolve the ‘nature or nurture’ question without an autopsy of my brain … and I’m not signing up, since I wouldn’t benefit from the new knowledge. 

WFW-Morning on Tumalo Mountain

Tumalo Mountain Morning

The packed snow squeaked beneath my snowshoes as I left my car and made my way across the parking lot to the place where I would step off the trail, and head uphill.  Soon the parking lot would be filled with the sights and two-stroke smells of snowmobiles off-loading and heading out.  But I would be oblivious to them.  Once in the woods, outside sounds are quickly muffled. 

As I stepped off the track, the squeaking sound was soon replaced with a nearly imperceptible whoosh of powder being displaced with each step.  Forty yards in, this was the only sound, other than my breath. 

The sky overhead was a study in pastel blues – translucent Caribbean to the east; fading to azure to the west.  I could see the sun kissing the icy treetops, but since my route began on the southwest slope of the mountain, I would be in the shade for at least the first hour of my walk. 

After a few minutes, I looked back to get my bearings.  Across the highway, I could see the chairlifts on Mount Bachelor begin to move; not holding any stylishly-clad butts for another hour or so – just cycling through so the operator could flip the seats down, and brush off the night’s accumulation of snow and ice.  The Sno-cats were on their last run; working their way down the mountain, leaving wide corduroy paths—ego-snow—which would lend the first skiers of the day a false sense of competence, before accumulating moguls and warming temperatures dashed those delusions.  

I could see each breath I exhaled, little puffy clouds of water vapor, crystalizing suspended in front of me.  The sense of aloneness was so profound, so welcome.  After two days of lift lines and rapid descents, a morning of measured steps, and silence was the elixir I needed.  An airliner passing above left puffy contrails in its wake, as it silently traversed the sky.  I paused for a moment to consider where it was heading, and the lives of the people on board, six miles high, traveling at nearly the speed of the silence we shared. 

The sun began to work its way down the nearby trees, slowly melting the ice that coated each branch, and hung from them in icicles.  Every so often a chunk of ice would break off and hit with a thud against a branch below, before falling silently into the snow.  As I continued, this percussion became more frequent – becoming like a percolator.  Finally, it was almost constant – like a thousand Chilean rainsticks.   It was other-worldly.  I looked around, and realized there was nobody else; the concert was just for me.  Then, as rapidly than it had built to its crescendo, the sounds became less and less frequent – more random, then finally not there at all. 

About the time the concert ended, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  I spun to look in the direction of the sound, and saw powder still suspended from where a branch had broken off and fallen into the snow.  The tree stood within a grove of dead trees – many so desiccated that the water which nightly freezes is about all that holds that branch to the trunk.  Finally, when the ice thaws, the branch gives way, to the tune of a broken-bat single, and is no more.  The branch opposite looked like the left arm from an ancient crucifix.   

This thin forest of standing dead trees stood like ancient ghost-sentries – manning their posts in death as in life; the vanguard frontier our the losing battle against climate change; vicariously atoning for mankind’s sins against nature; bravely facing our longer, hotter summers, and decreasing precipitation; finally falling to those most relentless six-legged horsemen of the apocalypse – the pine bark beetles.

Parents and Memory

One of the kindest, most healing choices we can make in life is to see our parents, not in harsh light that sharpens every blemish, and retains every childhood grievance, but through the soft focus of empathy, tempered by time and healing - seeing them as they aspired to be – perhaps as the people they might have been at their very best.

When our parents are alive, this gift is for them, and our relationship with them.  After they have passed, the beneficiary is ourselves.

We who are parents ourselves are twice blessed for this loving choice.  As our children witness and learn from our example, they may deem us worthy of the same indulgence.

Flightless Wings

Flightless, 

yet their wings are highly prized, 
harvested by the millions
for an annual sacrament, 
celebrated in gatherings
throughout the land, 
in which the wings—
only these tiny, useless vestigial wings—
are eaten.

Inscrutably called ‘buffalo’, 
they are consumed voraciously
by the faithful, 

who believe that 
if they consume enough of them, 
and scream— 
support or obscenities—
at electronic images across the room, 
they can influence events 
thousands of miles away. 

And the chickens—

wingless now—
wander the coop, 

or perhaps cross the road
for no apparent reason; 
retaining only the faintest memories
of their elusive dreams of flight. 

- Michel-Jacques Villeneuve

Waxing Gibbous

The waxing gibbous moon
gathers and reflects
the Sun’s love
sharing much with us; 
but—perhaps
still prideful of
her recent display of power—
she holds back just a bit 
for now.  

She wants us 
to ask nicely if we want
to see the rest.  

She's a lady,
and just want's a little
respect.

Tips are welcome.

Object Permanence

I know the sky is calling.  Angel, let me help you with your wings. 

From the moment we cut the umbilical cord, our role as parents is to help our children develop into independent, confident, happy adults.  We play peekaboo to teach them object permanence – the confidence that when we cover our eyes with our hands, we are still there.  We hold their hands as they take their first steps; hold the back of the seat, then run alongside, as they take their first bike ride.  When they skin their knees, or bump their heads, we are there to kiss it and make it better – to hold them as they cry.  Through our constancy, they learn to venture further afield; learning independence, knowing that we will be there for them at the end of their adventure.   

Then, when it is time for them to fledge, we watch, with a mixture of love and longing – knowing that the wind they follow will be of their own choosing – an expression of the independence and confidence we hope to have helped nurture. 

We so love their company that we would ask them to stay if we could.  But to keep them in the nest at this point would be as stifling as if we had glued the egg closed, so it could not hatch. 

Now it’s our turn, as parents, to trust in object permanence.  Our part is to remain constant, as always, so they know that wherever life takes them, open arms, a warm meal, and a made bed await them any time they wish to come home.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng5-VUDcjJ8

   

Bulwer-Lytton Contest - Horror Category Win

Former United States poet laureate William Stafford is noted for saying that the best response to writer’s block is to ‘lower your standards, and keep going.’

If one iterates this process enough times, their standards may descend to a level that makes them competitive in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Anyway, I’ve apparently attained that distinction, and thanks to our local paper, my fifteen minutes of fame begins this morning. Not sure which makes me prouder – the win, or being referred to as ‘Hazel Dell man’.

And I have no idea what to say about the picture, except that I don't know whether I'll ever be able to unsee it.  

http://www.columbian.com/news/2017/aug/20/the-imagery-of-infamy-hazel-dell-man-writes-his-way-into-acclaim/