She sleeps and has no memories to speak of. But I am cloaked in memory. These are the garments from childhood and beyond, strewn about my home as reminders of who I am and where I have come from. The Girl Scout uniform in all its glory, the floral furniture, the Queen Elizabeth lamp I coveted as a child, and even the 5,000 ton mechanical bed that bore sole witness to my mother’s final breath. The massive fire of 1962 erased all evidence of life before.
Each and every piece of physical evidence we carefully collect and display evokes a mind-trace to what went before; they are our bread crumbs stored up for a rainy day, our love letters sealed and preserved just in case we forget that we were once deeply loved.
Some of us feel mandated to preserve our own memories and the memory of others at the cost of living life. Some say remarrying after the death of a spouse is the ultimate betrayal. Getting rid of Granny’s homemade quilt running a close second. Take my house, for example. In it, lives the memory of two mothers, former deceased occupants I never met, discarded pottery from 2nd graders I never knew, oil paintings of strangers once in love. Forages through thrift shop rubble, flea markets and street fairs reveal treasures calling out for homes and the reverence due them. And so it is that we find ourselves surrounded by objects d’art that bind us to memory lest we forget we are a part of the collective.
Alcoholics clutch their drink, drug addicts their heroin, shoppers their acquisitions, spiritual seekers their illusions, each grasping for something that they believe will make all-things-right within. It is never enough. In our effort to bring newness into life and breath to the stagnation of our past, we reach out into the yet-to-be in search of unborn memories that give us temporary reprieve.
I once had a lover who gave me Puakenikeni, an intensely fragrant, but fragile Hawaiian flower. I saved every blossom. Dried and wilted, brown and aged, I kept them for years, a sacrilege to toss them away.
The flowers are finally gone, but I’m having a heck of a time getting rid of those love letters. Maybe in the Spring.
