Lost & Found
LOST & Found!!!!! In my closet, on a shelf pushed way back along with the long black half slip that has also been missing was THE GIRAFFE dress. No one, at this moment, is more surprised than ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a secret that I have discovered. When I left my brother’s house this past ‘09 Christmas weekend, the mystery just left. I gave up the search and counted it all for lost. I figured that when I had my annual post Christmas cleaning spree, I must have tossed it and the slip along with it. By this time, I have been searching for three plus months.
When I give up, what I am searching for turns up.
I think this is one of those secrets that few ever discover. I have to learn this over and over. Every time something comes up missing, I forget the secret and search myself crazy, then I give up, then it turns up.
EVERY TIME. I do not know who/what is the dumber in this equation: Me or the Searching.
This past Sunday evening I lost my Bloody Mary with extra Mary: just fixed and not one sip gone, but the drink was gone! I searched (of course), because I forgot my secret. Monday morning there it was sitting in Paul’s captain’s chair in the guest room. We did not even have guests. I sat down in the chair, before breakfast, and DRANK it.
Rejoice with me, seven in the morning and a double Bloody Mary is not half bad.
Of course, this secret law of finding also applies to locating a good wife or husband or partner. Give it a shot.
Now, should you forget your automobile and or your name, maybe you should seek help rather than allow both to just turn up on their own time. (all hard and fast laws are not hard nor are they fast).
On another note: I bought “DUMA KEY” when it first came out. I promptly lost the two inch thick hardback. I looked everywhere. Then on a day when I was in major pain and also drugged up on the prescribed cure–The Book Turned Up. So things and people do turn up in a timely manner.
Excellent mystery novel to read for budding artists with chronic pain in crisis no matter how old you are.
“DUMA KEY” by Stephen King
Filed under Aging | Comment (0)Old Is For Humans
I wake up in pain, do all my work that I do everyday. The pain never stops unless I lie back down in a perfectly flat position. Then my mind hurts because nothing is getting done.
If this is Arthritis then everyone who has it needs to be in a hospice. It is no wonder that the majority of aging humans that I see have a grim determined look on their faces that appears to be chiseled into their countenance. Which is exactly what it is: They are doing their best to do that which needs to be done on a daily basis and more importantly, complete the work.
It is Saturday. I have cooked, served, eaten and cleaned up breakfast for Paul and myself.
It is 11:36am. by the computer clock. I need a nap.
Yesterday Paul power sawed the remainder of the tree donated by Hurricane IKE. He finished the job, and he was taxed to the limit of his endurance. His comment was, “I will not be walking on the treadmill this evening.” Do you see what I mean? He had to work that hard to justify not doing what he does every day. He turned his chiseled determined face toward the shower and clean clothes.
I need a nap. For the Houston area, it is cold. I am cold. I have lost one of my favorite fuzzy black long warm socks, so I have on the one and will continue to look for the other, if it takes the remained of the day. If I don’t keep the one I have on my foot, I will forget what I am looking for and never find the other sock.
After my nap from exhausting myself serving breakfast, I will put on my determined chiseled face and continue the search. Paul thinks I look funny.
Our blood pressure is up because we need the extra air to turn the next page in our lives.
Happy January, 2010.
Filed under Aging | Comment (0)Bad & Good Memories
Good Memories are short term memories. We humans tend to dwell on Bad Memories, stir the stew day after day and tell others the BM, any one who will listen, we tell them; strangers on the subway, grocery store check out lines, or seated at the car-wash. All we need is one ear and we will recount the now embellished story of bad luck, depressed situations and children gone wrong.
By now the story has plowed a furrow in our putty brain which will stick there ready to be called up at any moment and recounted once again for the rest of our natural life. This is how long term memory is formed and fed the negative aspects of our lives. Nations even build monuments to these absolutely awful events in our nation’s history on the ‘lest we forger’ theory. How, I ask you, could we possibly forget?
Good Memories are seldom told over and over. We perceive them as boring and therefore difficult to remember. We do not like to re-tell them and no one really enjoys hearing them either. So they do not stay around long enough to plow a furrow in our putty brain.
We wonder why we forget things so easily. We may even see a physician on the matter. Believe me, the forgetfulness is self induced. We did not dwell upon the happening long enough to plow a furrow.
The memory easily recounts what it dwells upon.
Good memories leave with slightest BM breeze.
Good memories never were allowed to take root and grow in receptive, worked and turned furrows.
How many funny happy ending movies do we remember (besides It’s a Good Life)? That particular movie is reintroduced to us each and every holiday season, plowing a furrow in our putty brain.
The point here is, we remember the bad sad ones ending in death or trauma or hopeless futures for the leading characters. We remember the song that was sung as the credits rolled up the screen. Then every time we hear that song, we remember the sad movie, sometimes word for word. We may even re-shed tear or two.
So if you are one of the ones who believes that you are losing your mind, remember to feed it better memories so that the putty brain can hold many deep fertile furrows to grow more good memories, even if you are only able to share them with yourself on a rainy day.
Good luck today with your memory garden.
Happy New Year: 2009
COMMENT from Sioux:
I must agree, although sometimes the bad memories become weeds that can take over your memory garden, impeding the growth of good-memory flowers. I believe that wonderful, positive people (such as you TurtleWoman), can act as weedkillers and you should surround yourself with them at all times. Otherwise, it will take a complete turning-over of soil to start again, which is never a happy point in life.Everyone should have at least one Native American for a dear and close friend, if for no other reason than calm sanity for the soul. After a while, Grandfather Spirit will move upon your Native American friend and give you a new name. That is the greatest gift of all.
Filed under Aging | Comment (0)Remember What?
An aspiring writer with short term memory loss is not conducive to prolificity or getting published. So I carry my little notebook around to record these fleeting (fleeing) thoughts before they fly away to that huge literary bone pile in Netherworld. Write it DOWN. NOW! Rarely do I obey the muse. So the great American Novel will never come out my brain.
I lose my coffee. I have learned to drink cold coffee and not give it a second thought. I cannot do that of course because I cannot remember the first thought.
I also get up quickly thinking I must go take care of the thought I am in the process of having before I forget it and end up in some room and not know why I am there.
I know these are all jokes that are running steady on comedy shows and E-mail send-a-longs. But I am living the joke and I walk a lot and never leave the house.
Swimming in circles in the neighbor’s phenomenal backyard pool is the solace that I needed and that hope that some sense of solidarity is in that marvelous water. I count the laps and I remember that I am swimming in a circle, circle by circle. Twenty full circle laps is an hour. If I lose count, I am still swimming in the same pool. My kitchen timer and the Episcopal Church hourly chimes keep me up to speed.
I look at people bold faced in the eyeball and cannot remember their name. I want everyone to wear name tags, it worked in kindergarten; it will work now. This is not funny. I spend time, useless time on useless thought. Easily distracted to the least passing whim causes me to forget what I was doing in the first place.
Example: turning on the stove to HIGH in-order to heat the soup quickly because I was hungry. I was hungry when I turned the soup on. I forgot I was hungry when I wondered about my painting in the art room which is clear across the house and out of nose range. The soup had become a rock in the pot. I had to throw the Revere Ware pot away and still was not hungry. I received that pot when I was 19 years old for a wedding gift. I remember what I had on when I unwrapped it. I burned soup in that pot back then because I was a bride. That was an okay excuse. The excuses I have now do not pass.
I love to watch the sun go down in Texas. The sky will put an artist’s well thought out pallet to shame. I know all those colors by heart and expertly mix them time and time again. Some things seem to have made a large enough furrow in my brain to still be accessible.
The sun stays in the sky. I stay on the glider. I know why I am there. The sun is not distracted by itself or me. It is constant, like the church chimes. I regroup myself in front of the face of the sun. I start over. I say tomorrow will be different.
But it won’t be, will it.
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