 |
| Memories should not be relied on to transport us back in time but used to transport us into the future - our treasure map, leading us through the memories to come. |
Turn around. Look back. Remember to remember.
There are a few memories that have found a place close to my heart. They seem to rise above the rest. I have no photos from these moments. I have no witnesses. I have no proof that they even existed. I have never written about these memories. There are no Facebook posts to help me thread meaning back into my emotions. I have never, until recently, even uttered a word about the sequence of events that unfolded during these specific moments.
The difference, the reason I cherish these two moments, is that I remembered to remember as my memory (my moment) was unfolding. I looked back and turned around while in the midst of the memory. Many memories are manipulated by perspective. We conjure up what we can remember with the lens of who we are today. Our memories are colored by our perspective and this can subconsciously warp our identity.
However when we live within our perspective selves, always using our future self to help mold the moment our memories can truly be depended upon. And also so can we.
It was a quiet, breathless night. Our 100 year old house oozed sweat. Even with all the windows open there was no breeze. Our four month old had taken to only sleeping when on top of me and that made matters all the worse. Lying there drifting in and out of sleep I was remotely aware that I had started the sprinkler when there had been daylight. As I gazed out the window there was only darkness. I felt the time. It must have been pretty late. Hazily I remembered My Love getting the call. There was very bad news on the other end. He had left hours ago. A baby had died. Waiting for adoption paperwork, a baby had died. Died in her sleep. I was left alone with the heat, the darkness, my sprinkler and our first born son. I was breathless.
The weight of the moment punched me again and again as I would wake to dream. The darkness surrounded me. At each pelting of the sprinkler I imagined how much money we were wasting. My four month old slept soundly but I grew restless, weepy and lonely.
Then it happened. I made myself turn around. I looked back. My future self found me and comforted me. She showed me the sequence of events clearly as I had grown quite fuzzy. Together we reenacted the last several hours and I became more focused. I felt the heat tickle my body. I smelled my son's hair and ran my fingers over his soft head. My body adjusted itself and I soaked up my son's breaths. My ears no longer were stressed listening to the wasteful sprinkler. The running water comforted my nightmare that had been pushed deep down within me. The death of a child. A baby. My future self held me in her arms and spoke harsh truths. These truths thankfully were wrapped in lullabys and I drifted back into a fitful sleep.
The moment had become crisp and clear at the edges. There was no fuzziness. And I remembered to remember.
I would love to tell you that I got up that night and turned off the sprinkler. That I put my baby down in his crib. That I took a cold shower. I would love to tell you that I rehearsed my conversation with my absent Love and when he got home that I held him in his moment of grief. But none of that happened.
If I had not taken the time to pause, to turn around, to look back and find my future self all of these moments may have happened. Over time memories can be corrupted into pretty little packages. But it was not a pretty night. It was brutish and ugly. I inhaled the emotions and allowed myself to quietly rest with my son on my chest until morning.
My future self and me met again within the same realm the day my second child was born. We smiled at each other for we had already experienced the pain of death together and we remembered to remember.
Memories pile up. They are the architect of our identities. But if our memories become perverted by time then are our identities also false? Are we untrue? Are our memories so easily manipulated?
It had finally stopped raining and my not so little bundle of joy and me were off to the park. She had a backpack full of spy gear and she was ready for an adventure. We climbed the play structure together and she haphazardly rambled about our spy game and its rules and definitions. When we reached the top she unzipped her backpack and handed me a pair of binoculars. I sat down and took a look. At that moment my future self held out her hand to me. She pointed out the newly returning birds perched in the treetops. She opened my ears and I heard the wind whipping and hollering. I smelled sawdust from the new housing development and felt the end of winter. I paused to remember. I looked back on the moment as it was unfolding and made it how I remembered it to be. That day my not so little bundle of joy and I took out many treasures from her backpack. We sat, watched, listened, smelled, wrote (yes she brought a clipboard) and whispered for hours. As our hands turned icy we in turn headed for home.
I would love to tell you that I snapped a hundred photos. That while playing with her, I was also trying desperately to read the latest "Mommy Blog" that would miraculously tell me how to be a better mother. I would love to tell you that I sat on a park bench while she played and I chatted with all the other moms, having deep conversations about what to feed our family for dinner. But none of that happened.
If I had not taken the time to pause, to turn around, to look back and find my future self all of these moments could have happened. Thankfully my future self and I had met prior. We had found each other again on top of another, different park structure, long ago, when my first born was only two years old. I was working fulltime and the time I did get to spend at the park was a treasure. I remember pausing during one of these outings, reminding my future self not to waste a second.
Memories can live in the past, continually warping and perverting our identities or our memories can live within the present, with a forecast upon the future, continually shaping our perspective. Navigating the waters. Our treasure map for what's to come. Dependable, trustworthy and reliable.