misplaced memory
August 6, 2016 § 4 Comments
A while back I wrote on the loss of a special piece of paper, something carefully crafted to preserve a sentimental corner of our old home to weight our new home with familiarity. It was the growth chart we had carefully tallied against the door frame between our kitchen and laundry room. Small lines in varying penmanship that marked the passage of time in the progress of height.
Last week, as I vacuumed an overlooked corner of our home, the previously presumed lost piece of paper was found.
Even as I held the list, my mind argued the impossibility of its reality against the fiction of my memory’s certainty. I could replay my error like scenes from a movie that rolled slowly from frame to frame. The folded piece of notebook paper that I plucked from beneath our charging station; admonishing myself for safe keeping something I had not, for weeks, recalled referencing. I labeled it unimportant and shuffled in among so many other displaced items as I breezed through in a moment’s urgency to sweep away the chaos of clutter.
I can still feel the grit of dust and the course chafing of paper against my fingertips, the irritation that ruffled my patience. The satisfaction of crumpling my frustration in the a tidy ball and, later still, the sense of loss that I had been so reckless in my dismissal. The urgency with which I had mentally retraced my steps, unfolding a page and mourning dates and names that guarded a sense of us that could not be translated from numbers to words.
Only, my memory is wrong. The evidence rests in a piece of paper that tells another story. Old lines on new walls now guard the past with presence.
Which makes me wonder of the page I was so certain of. There are no other numbers I have missed, papers I cannot place. Maybe it was nonsense rightfully recycled into waste, but the exercise in mindfulness was not lost to error.
scribblechic 
Maybe just Father Time wanting you to move into the new change everyone has gone through Marie, begin another way of doing or just another way of being.
Our minds do play tricks, but usually so that we can see something within, resolve its meaning, and use what has been shown for a better understanding of ourselves.
And of course the outcome, of always building something better, within and without for its future actions 🙂
I’ve been letting your words rattle around my thoughts, appreciating the notion that tricks of thought are an invitation to challenge our perspective and grow. Lovely sentiment, Mark.
I am not sure how any of us keeps track of anything now! I put my reading glasses in the linen closet the other day and it took me two days to find them:). I was distracted with errands, kids, dog, work–life. We all need to simplify and slow down . . .
I love when I’m looking for the object in hand almost as much as when I discover the logic of a momentary distraction. Glad you found your glasses, Kay. Thanks for the smile!