Memories

We carry our memories,” he said, “into every minute of our being.” I didn’t hear anything else for the next few minutes. The rest of his words were fuzzy static in my ears. I leaned back, closed my eyes and repeated to myself what I had just heard. We carry our memories into every minute of our being. I wasn’t sure if I grasped what it meant, but I knew it was profound and a tad prophetic. Clearly, we each carry our memories. How could we not? Our memories are with us always. Sometimes, we just aren’t aware of them. They accumulate whether we want them to or not. Our memories are stored and sometimes categorized. Some of us neatly stack and file our memories so they can be easily retrieved. Others have a memory collection that looks like paper blowing out of a dump truck on the highway. The memories float around, unassembled and disorderly. They drift away and come back and when they land it is softly and without notice. They only serve to litter our unconsciousness and confuse our lives. Many of us experience memories that drop on us like efficient highly trained warriors out of nowhere. Uninvited they march in, take over and threaten to assault us and disrupt our lives. But what he said and I think what he meant was that our memories coagulate. They form sticky relationships with each other. They build skyscrapers in our minds that reconstruct our experiences. Sometimes they fit together neatly like a jigsaw puzzle and other times they clash and resemble a poorly done house remodel with additions and knock outs that make no sense. Memories become a part of us and inform our behavior and how we conduct our daily lives. Our memories intertwine with each other and with our DNA. Spiral to spiral they design who we are. We are works in progress because each day creates new memories and each new memory changes our pattern. Our memories may coincide happily or they may form dysfunctional relationships, but they morph together and create us. Each memory is alive in us and shapes our being. Is that what he meant by “into every minute of our being?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We carry our memories
Into every minute of our being

This memory
That memory
Recent or long ago
They remain whether we remember
Or not

They may hide
They may haunt
They may whisper
They may taunt
They may comfort
And cajole
Or
Accuse and scold

Our memories can live peacefully together
Or they can collide and conflict

Our memories can be sticky
Or slick
They can firmly attach to us
Or slide away and go deep into our
Subconscious where they may melt and morph

But they never leave us
They never disappear
They are always with us
They move throughout our mind
Body
And soul
And shape who we are

We are clay
Our memories the sculptor

Gravity

i read today with my son

a lesson on gravity

but i learned about falling

i am

we are

always falling towards

the center of the earth

in that small moment

with the words

swimming in our minds

tangential

attractive

electromagnetism

force

my lesson

checked as complete

i sighed

so many things

in my mind

sat down

and understood

One of those six word memoirs...

Moon phases have nothing on me.

A thump. A thud. A bang. Silence. The silence marking before and after.

Bewildered, I looked at the scattered random toys of a fourth child – a few blocks, dolls with their faces scribbled out, chipped wooden men that balanced on each other’s shoulders if you had more than two. The toy box lid had slammed shut, and our dad lay dead on the floor. Bang. The black telephone clutched in his hand. Thud. He barely fit in the hallway head to shoe. Thump. His heart gave out, and he was gone. The two questions, first as a child – “where did he go?”, later as an adult –“who was he talking to?”.

The cramped hallway had a huge attic fan whose maw opened up to suck in all the air, balloons, and paper airplanes. Darkly numinous, it was a perfect place for a game called Murder in the Dark. “Murder in the dark, murder in the dark, monkey wants to speak, speak, monkey, speak.”

Made up games, children’s voices, songs, laughter, bitter tears, slammed doors, and the piano.

An old upright piano has a unique quality of sound, warm and round and sentimental. If it’s in a room with wooden floors, the floor becomes a part of the instrument. In a room with wooden floors, surrounded by people and played by someone attuned to the sound, then the breeze comes through the screen door next to the piano, and that becomes a work of art.

The attic fan purred on, swimming through the air of time, pulling the hot summer air through the screens, past the piano which played on and through the organic life our family pieced together.

If

If I were a pebble
on the beach,
would you bend down
and pick
me up?
Would you think me
beautiful,
take me home and
place me gently in
in your
treasure box?

Maybe you'd skip me
out to sea,
where I'd slowly
float
to the bottom,
settling into the
mud,
never to be found
again.

Or would you toss
me
into your small
red bucket
with the others
you've collected
and listen to me
ping
against the tin?

And later
use me as
a part of
a tiny stone
wall
surrounding your
sand castle?

Would you notice
my heart
shape,
smile, and write
your initials on
my smooth
surface?

Perhaps you'd drop me
into your
pocket
and someday give
me
away to
your lover,
who would sleep
with me
under her pillow,
and dream of
you.

I am a childless motherless child and today is mothers day. For years, I spent hours trying to find just the right card and just the right words to write on the card. It’s hard to find one that keeps to a basic unemotional greeting and doesn’t extol the virtues of mom. What I searched for was a card that fulfilled the basic obligation without any hint of sentimentality or even love or affection. Sometimes, I ended up buying blank cards with a flower on the front just to avoid the prospect of sending what would have felt like a hypocritical greeting. I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression or the satisfaction of thinking she had the qualities of a mother or that I believed she did. She gave birth to me. She was my mother biologically. But she did not nurture me. She did not teach me. She did not protect me. These are the things I thought when I would sit pen in hand ready to write something on the card I had finally selected. What to say? I couldn’t even write the words thank you without feeling like a participant in a fraudulent relationship, which is, of course, what we had. For all of my adult life, we had choreographed and danced in a mother daughter pax de deux in which we each pretended that despite our differences there was still a modicum of familial love. The truth was, I stopped loving my mother very early on in my life. She became something I had to endure and transcend. I was not grateful to her for anything. In the end, I usually ended up writing something like enjoy your day, have fun, happy mothers day and other generic versions of the same wish.

She died a few years ago and now mothers day comes and goes without my even noticing or barely being aware of it because of the other mothers and daughters in my life. Mothers day used to be another painful landmark on the roadmap of my life. It was a day that couldn’t help but remind me that I’d never really had a mother. On my passage from childhood to adulthood I had not experienced a motherly figure who pointed me in the right direction and filled my tires with self esteem, confidence and love. I never experienced the soothing comfort of the motherly security blanket that sheltered my friends. My journey through life has not enjoyed the benefit of a mother who was there to reassure me if I had an emotional flat or needed fuel. Even when she was alive, I was motherless and on my own. The Hallmark ads on TV showing loving relationships between mothers and daughters used to bring me to my knees. Watching those beautifully depicted scenarios made me feel like the Morton salt girl was floating above me pouring and pouring her salt on my wretchedly warped heart. And, me, without an umbrella.

In the past, mothers day made me feel like I was a little girl again. I was brimming with hurt, resentment, dread, pain, confusion, disappointment and fear. It hurt to have a mother who was clearly not on my side, who put herself first and her daughter second. It confused me to have a mother who manipulated people and situations to show herself in the best light and shape shifted the reality that I knew. I resented not learning the regular lessons one is supposed to learn from their mother. I dreaded having to be with her or speak to her. The pain shifted from a dull background throb when I was away from her into one that was present, sharp and searing when I had to be near her. Until she died, I was terribly afraid that as bad as it was while she lived it would be worse when she died. I feared the guilt and loss would own me once she permanently left my life and this world. Instead, the minute I heard she was no longer living I sighed with relief and exhaled the pungent air of the life I had known before her death and inhaled the fresh oxygen of life after the death of my mother.

When my friends worry about their daughters I envy the daughters for being the recipients of such concern. When my friends have conflicts with their daughters I have to be careful not to insinuate myself into their stories. The daughters of loving mothers can often behave like the daughter I was. Not many people understand what it’s like to grow up without the crutch of a mother and my stories and recollections can be perceived as criticism of them. When my friends complain about their daughters and how they are treated by them, I wonder if the whole problem was that I was a bad daughter. But, I know that’s not true. I wasn’t a good daughter, but I no longer blame myself for the situation I was born into. Just because I wasn’t good doesn’t mean I was bad.

My childless status is mostly due to my being motherless. Mother child relationships are mysterious to me. There are magic words involved that I never learned. There is an entire language both verbal and physical that is completely foreign to me. I knew that if I had a child I would most likely feel even more lost, abandoned and short changed. My own child could only magnify my lack of a mother. After all, among the many things she did not teach me was how to be a mother. I had no monkey see monkey do to rely upon. I imagine most people think I am childless because I am physically incapable of having children. Or, maybe they think it was a high minded decision about population control. In reality, I didn’t think I could do it.

In retrospect, I realize that in many ways my mother did the best she could. She knew no better and probably should have remained childless herself. There are ways though that she could have and should have known better. For all of us there are times and obligations in our lives when we must think of someone other than ourselves and if we don’t due to a lack of character, imagination or courage then we are at fault. My mother saw the world through her own prism and was never able to view me or anyone or anything else on its own merit. She was incapable of fulfilling her lifelong obligation of motherhood although she pretended to and I sometimes wonder if she actually fooled herself into thinking she did.

So, today, I enjoyed a mothers day brunch with women who are either geographically or emotionally distant from their daughters on this particular day. As I’ve matured, I’ve learned and observed that mother daughter dynamics are as brittle and mysterious to others as they are to me.

Ultimately, I think, what each of us wants is to matter in this world. That one desire probably lies at the crux of why we do most things. It shapes our world view and belief system as well as dictates our rules of survival. In our primary relationships we want to matter in ways that are substantial and not tangential. We want our importance and intrinsic value to the people we care about to be reflected back to us in a way that provide comfort, quiet and calm. We want to be valued and appreciated for who we are and not just what we do or can do for them. The ultimate sustenance is when our very existence matters to someone. This is what love is, I think. But, to matter is different than to be needed. Maybe this is where we go astray sometimes. We think that if we need someone then of course they matter and by deductive reasoning then that also means we love them. But to have someone matter does not necessarily mean we need them and the highest love is one not based on need. I don’t think my mother was able to parse this distinction. Her love was greedy. If I’d had children, I was afraid mine would have been the same.

Mombo

In honor of mother's day, I am practising making a photo post. Mombo with her turkey pan.