Remembrance

image courtesy of Pixabay

One of the best things about Facebook is keeping in touch with people I otherwise wouldn’t have. Let’s face it, I’m not a phone talker and while I enjoy emails, you can’t easily find them like the phone book of the 80s—the world of communication has changed. I may often write about the negatives of social media, but my time spent on Facebook has kept connections from all facets of my life alive—grade school, high school, employment, and the towns I’ve lived in. Our lives may change, but it’s no longer a final GOODBYE. For example, I stopped working at the local school in 2019, but through Facebook, I still know how my favorite choir teacher is doing as she makes the big change to retire near her grandchildren and be the Baba she truly is.

One of the best things about moving home is reconnecting in person with these people IRL. I’ve had the honor of seeing two women from high school in the past few weeks. First, I had dinner with Joanne and then the other day, lunch with Siobhan. In both cases, because we’ve stayed in touch online, there are some shared memories I can recall. However, as we chatted, it became apparent that they both had way better recollection skills than I. Both remembered names, events, and teachers that remain blank in my head. The same thing happened to me last summer, when my high school friend, Amy, hosted a book club for It Takes Two. Dozens of high school friends came and for a few, I must confess, I didn’t remember their names. Their smiles and shine in their eyes, yes, but names, no. As they reminded me by giving their name, it was as if a book within my mind opened, the book with their name. Yes, that’s Denise and that’s Susie. Yes, we were in homeroom together, or that communications class where we gave speeches and people like Carrie made us laugh the entire time. Yes, I remember, yes…

My husband and I went to his 40th high school reunion just last weekend. He too had to go through the process of recalling and, a few times, failed to bring up a single memory. When I hang out with people like Joanne or Amy, it seems like they remember everything. My husband and I, our brains don’t work like that. Perhaps there’s something wrong with us? Was high school so traumatic we blocked it out? As an exercise to see if I had any brains left, I took the time to try to remember my entire 8th grade class. I wrote a list of their names as best as I could. This shouldn’t be too hard, there were only about 20 of us and we were together from kindergarten on. I could only remember sixteen names and faces, but the good news was, I recalled many memories for each person on that list.

Triggers

The word, trigger, has a bad rap, but it’s really anything that can help you recall. Sometimes it’s a name or a face, other times it’s a song. Bruce Springsteen was in town this weekend and hearing him sing “Dancing in the Dark” while I sat on my back porch opened the flood gates within my mind that helped me remember my grade school classmates. Songs, smells, and similar events remind us of what is still within our minds, even if we can’t access them immediately.

I must admit, I’ve been a bit triggered by the idea of memory loss in general. Watching my mother’s mind slowly fade the past two years, I realize that while everything is still written in the collective, our brains aren’t always able to access the information. My husband and I recently watched a show called Locke and Key. A sweet little horror show about three kids who discover a house filled with magical keys. Think Stranger Things meets Narnia. The show itself was a great watch, yet what I found most horrifying was the theme of memory. Adults can’t remember anything that happens with magic. They might be in the room with you when you defeat an enemy with the magic of the keys, but they’ll forget soon after. This fact creates a gap between the kids and their mother. She knows something is wrong, that she’s missing out and can’t fully participate in her children’s lives, but she has no idea why. The eldest child is a 17 yo boy. As his girlfriend approaches 18, she too starts forgetting their magical moments together. Watching the young woman forget things and the pain on the boy’s face as it happens reminds me of my own mother, little by little forgetting events, and knowing that somehow she’s missing out.

In my mom’s case, it was discovered that she has Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, which is causing the dementia. She was able to get a shunt to drain the extra cerebral spinal fluid from her brain and miraculously, her memory is returning. In Locke and Key, there is a memory key that one can use to remember forever, but only if you give the other person permission to use it. My mother’s shunt is like a memory key. It makes me wonder, what other memory keys exist and how do I make sure I have them when the time comes for me? Sitting with Joanne and listening to her stories, I could feel my mind opening up as if she’d used a memory key on me. Perhaps this is why we need each other and community? So we can reflect back or trigger one another’s memories through conversation and story?

The Collective

I study a lot of philosophy and hermetic theory. For me, the way the ancients saw the world and the cosmos and humanity’s place in all of it soothes me. Much of it is familiar, like I’m remembering something I’ve always known. Many great thinkers have likened education as a process of remembering. Someone has discovered information and then we can discover it by studying. We remember because once something has occurred in one of us, it has somehow occurred in all of us. A practice that often comes up when I’m studying these subjects is the power of imaginative memory. Everything is seen first in the imagination. Artists, inventors, writers, we all “see” these ideas. The goal is to immerse oneself within this image, this imagination, so deeply it eventually becomes real. The sculpture is made, the novel written, the atom bomb explodes…all began within and once the imagined is without, aka released unto the world, it is now a part of everyone.

The collective consciousness is the internet that already exists between all of life. It’s the wind, the storm, the river, the old woman on the park bench, the dog at your side. All is connected through memory and thought. When we’ve honed our imaginative memory capacities, we can nearly walk in another’s shoes. I say nearly because memory is a shadow of reality. The heart of the memory is truth, but the details can differ. For example, when Siobhan and I were recalling our first pompom camp together, we both remembered the same bullying event, only I remembered details like the room where it happened in and she remembered the names of the perpetrators and interestingly, we both thought we were the sole objects of the bullying. Turns out, we were both being bullied by the same people and either didn’t realize it at the time or we remember it differently now. Still, one can slip into the events taking place around them; it’s why when a disaster strikes, we often feel grief, whether we’ve lived through disaster or not. We’re one humanity, one life, and we can, if we let ourselves, share each other’s pain.

Remembrance

A few weeks ago, eleven tornadoes touched down in the suburbs around Chicago. They didn’t do horrific damage, but the storm system was so severe, every tornado alarm was set off within the city. The noise was stunning, War of the Worlds eerie, and triggered memories, both of the fire in California as well as tornadoes from my childhood. At first, I simply grabbed my keys and my phone and went to the basement. I live on the third floor and the sky was green and as if on autopilot, I fled to safety. Walt and the dog were out of town (of course).

When I got to the basement of the building, there was only one other family down there. I sat next to them and realized how poorly I’d yet again “evacuated.” I’d left everything behind—computer and most importantly the vital documents that had taken nearly a year to replace after the fire. About fifteen minutes later, the sirens went off and I returned to my apartment. Ten minutes after that, they all came on again. I knew deep inside that even though a funnel cloud was forming above Wrigley Field, only ½ a mile from me, the buildings would prevent the wind from taking a true tornado form. What was happening in the city were mini-phantom tornadoes. The storm’s final attempt to cause damage before hitting Lake Michigan. I knew this, but the sirens were wreaking havoc on my nervous system. Hearing them made me remember the fire, standing on the smoky porch telling myself that I’d be home soon. That no way in hell would a fire consume my neighborhood. The truth is, I can never trust my instincts anymore. I was wrong that night, the worst did happen. So I went back down to the basement and this time brought my computer, the vital documents, chocolate, and my knitting. I hung out for twenty minutes and emerged when the sirens stopped for good.

When I returned to my apartment, the boy downstairs started playing his piano. I love it when he does this, it reminds me of when my eldest used to play his violin while I cooked dinner. I sat down in the dark, silent front room where I could hear him the best, the notes bubbling up through the floorboards. I recognized the song he was working on—a melody from the movie Interstellar, a soundtrack my eldest loved. As I sighed out the tension that had been building while the sirens blared across the city, I was suddenly transported back in time to my kitchen in Bonny Doon. I could smell the spaghetti on the stovetop, feel the dirty wooden floorboards under my feet. My son was playing his violin. I stood in that kitchen, soaking it in, something I always did back then. I often give thanks for my beautiful life in such moments. This time though, I was looking down from the future and I envisioned myself touching my countertop and blessing it, saying goodbye. While I may again someday get to listen to my son play the violin while I cook, I will never be in that kitchen again, for it is long gone, burnt by fire then scooped up by bulldozer, thrown away, never again to be seen.

The three-year anniversary of the CZU wildfire is this week. Our home burned on 8/19/2020. My cat, Sebastian, died that day as well. I will admit, the fires on Maui are hitting me hard. I’ve allowed myself to tap into the collective consciousness, to feel their pain, but can only withstand it for a few minutes. I spent a few hours yesterday watching videos made by the survivors. The images are terrifying, what happened to them is something no person should ever have to endure. There was this one that showed a large burnt animal in the street, probably a goat, and that was super hard to look at, but look at it I did, while uttering the names of my own goats, finally allowing myself to imagine what Barttimus and Abby went through, and understanding what my husband did for me when he went to the property and recovered their bodies to bury them far from the wreckage in the field where they’d played. I hadn’t the courage to go with him to help. How can he be so brave?

My heart is with Maui, with the survivors, with that community. It’s not much condolence, I know, but I’ve been able to give some advice on Twitter to help them. File that insurance claim. Find temporary housing as fast as you can. Then, be still. Listen to your heart. Tend to your loved ones. Tend to the dead. There’s no rush. The island will be overrun with “officials” for the next few months, stomping around your private places, intruding in many ways. You’ll want to scream. You’ll feel violated. But once the debris is removed, take the time to ask the winds, the island herself. She will tell you what the next step is. Be brave. Be kind with yourself.

Remember, you are not alone. We are one planet, one heart, one memory, woven through time.