Tag Archives: Life

Daily Photo: September 12, 2009

The ever noble Shelby, posing like no other.

Our sorely missed cat, enjoying a rare moment of British late-summer sunshine. He was such a smart cat – you’d never find him out here in the rain!

Thought of the Week: Vanilla Water

Some time ago, I set up to brew coffee in our filter coffee maker. I put a splash of vanilla in the bottom of the carafe, because that’s what we do, and I set it going. When the carafe began to fill with an extremely pale, yellowish water, I realized I had forgotten a rather important ingredient.

Another time, I thought I’d be clever and set the coffee maker up the night before, so that it would be fresh and waiting to go when we woke up. I filled it up, put the coffee in because I’d learned from my mistake, set the timer, and went to bed. I woke up in the morning to find the kitchen floor flooded with water; I had forgotten to close the lid on the coffee maker.

These are the things I deal with on a daily basis (though I doubt I’m alone). Tonight I couldn’t remember if I had taken my medication this morning, so I took a double dose. The other night I took out the garbage and forgot to leave the door unlocked; I nearly broke my leg trying to climb in through a second-storey window. I’ve also forgotten all the witty things I was going to write in this post.

You see, this topic has come up because I realized the other day that I’d forgotten to post a thought of the week last week (I had to write down that I wanted to write about this in case I forgot). I forget an awful lot of things, both minor and major. I often forget where I left my glasses, or my iPhone (thank goodness for Find My iPhone). Probably the worst thing I ever forgot was Valentine’s Day (I don’t dare forget my wife’s birthday – I have approximately sixteen reminders for this). I’ve even forgotten my son was in the back of the car and drove him to work instead of school.

I read an interesting publication a while back on the nature of forgetfulness. Apparently, walking through doors can affect this greatly. I can’t remember the number of times I’ve gone into a different room and had no idea what I went in there for (I’m trying not to think too hard about that sentence). In the study, they had participants play a simple computer game where they looked at an object in a room, then walked away from the object and were asked to recall what it was. They discovered that significantly fewer participants who walked through a doorway could recall it compared to those who didn’t leave the room, even if they walked a comparable distance away.

Similar studies have shown that memories are often grossly distorted from the actual reality of the event. One example had different subjects taste – or not taste – a piece of chocolate. Some of them were simply given the chocolate; others were told beforehand how wonderful and delicious the chocolate was going to be. Some time later, they were asked to describe the taste; those to whom the taste was described recalled the taste far better – even those who had never tasted it!

These occurrences are so frequent for me that I am becoming increasingly concerned, often to the point of doubting my own thoughts and and considerations. Things I adamantly remember – clearly, vividly, blow by blow – turn out to have never happened. I recall conversations with my wife that never took place, and forget the ones that did.

These two aspects of failing memory – false and absent recall – make me worried for my own sanity. I am already disposed of an ill mind, and these symptoms seem only to reinforce my maladies. Even now, as I have begun to reread my book for editing, I have come across entire passages I don’t recall writing.

So what am I to do? I have tried many memory aids – pieces of string, notes, reminders; often, though, by the time I find pen and paper, I have already forgotten what I intended to write. I don’t remember what the string was for. A date pops up in my calendar, and I can’t remember why. I realize this must seem mundane – perhaps normal, even – but I worry that my memory will continue to degenerate, and I will soon be unable to remember even the simplest of things. Early-onset Alzheimer’s, perhaps?

Tell me – what do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments; I just hope I remember them.

Tales of Despair: When the Walls Begin to Crumble

Imagine you are not who you say you are. You are something different, something other, that no one else sees. Something that no one else can be allowed to see, for fear it will destroy you both.

So many years ago, you became this other you. Like a slow tide, you were unconsciously inundated, uncertain when the first cold touch of sea first came, but knowing that the depths were rising. Before long, all that remained were dead eyes, remaining above the surface – and soon, you sank below, and the deep and the black swallowed you whole.

The dark became your life; it threatened to take your life; it was around you, and in you, and through and through, it was you. And the drowning was a bliss, because as slowly the breath was stolen from your lungs, all things became unimportant, and thought left you mind. Day upon day passed, undistinguished, and the very light of the sun was darkness to your eyes.

And then, like all things, it came to pass; the waters receded, and the world returned…but it was not as before. You were changed, irrefutably, and irreparably. The world became always dark, and the thrills and joys were muted and grey. And you began to notice the ways of the world, and cynicism and spite grew like poison thorns in your mind. You pitied – and envied – the thoughtless, empty, blissfully unaware souls that surrounded you, deluding themselves with false happiness and toiling ignorantly towards insignificant goals.

And you came to realize that you had to survive. There was no place for one like you anymore in the world. And so, piece by piece, you crafted your mask – you built the walls.

And you built them high, and strong, and through the windows came the smiling light of a joyful soul. The walls were whitewashed, and the roof was tiled, and the shutters painted, and the garden neatly tended. What a beautiful house, they all said – what a wonderful person. There is humor, there is wit, there is drive and there is compassion. You looked around, and you observed, and your false house became a mirror of those among whom you now live. Always careful – only a small piece from here, a tad from there – just enough that they all believe you are your own, original, colorful creation.

What they don’t know – what they can’t know – is that inside, the lights are out, and the floor is dusty, and on the walls the cobwebs hang thick. Here is where you go at the end of each and every day. And the worst is that, on your way home, you see that bright, friendly house you built, and for a moment – just a moment – you believe in it. You built your walls so convincingly that you have fooled yourself.

How were you to know what was to come? How could you have known that those walls wouldn’t last forever? It almost seemed you could live in that fantasy, and as long as you stayed on the outside, the dark might not actually be real. And then – now – the walls are beginning to crumble. Brick by brick, you see them fall away. There are days when you try to patch, support and rebuild, but it is insidious – like that first, callous tide that pulled you under and changed you forever.

Soon, the walls may fall away, and there, huddling amid the rubble, is you – the true you, the twisted and deformed you, the you that was made, all those years ago. And there will be no hiding, and no rebuilding. And then, the tide will come in again, and it will wash away the ruins…and perhaps, it will wash away you.