Like The Colors of My Mind

What sort of future is coming up from behind I don't really know. But the past, spread out ahead, dominates everything in sight.

--- Robert M. Pirzig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

With such a busy lifestyle being mom to twins, working full time, and living in a fast-paced society, one needs to resort to power shopping. For me that means not just groceries (buy in bulk, buy online) or clothes, it also means books. When I find myself in a bookstore, I just stock up: perusing interesting covers, speed reading synopses, watching out for favorite authors, even if it means I won’t get to actually read the book ‘til weeks, months, even years later.

I do believe that when it is the right time to read a book, your fingers will find it (under the pile of clothes, stacked high on top of the pile of books, as they balance themselves on top of shoeboxes...) Somehow, when it is time for you to know what it is you need to know, the book will find you. Such is what happened to me when I found my copy of “An Alchemy of Mind” by one of my favorite authors, Diane Ackerman (thank you Didi Manahan for introducing me to her) under my bed a few weeks ago.

As the title suggests, the book explores the mind, as Ackerman only can and as best as one could, I suppose, since I believe the mind is as unique to an individual, as are fingerprints. I discovered with delight, the chapter on memory. I quote entirely from her below, I will not even attempt to say it better than she does. Here goes…

From the Chapter entitled “What Is a Memory?”…

Like tiny islands on the horizon, they can vanish in rough seas. Even in calm weather, their coral gradually erodes, pickled by salt and heat. Yet they form the shoals of a life. Some offer safe lagoons and murmuring trees. Others crawl with pirates and reptiles. Together, they connect a self with the mainland and society. Plot their trail and a mercurial past becomes visible.

Memories feel geological in their repose, solid and true, the bedrock of consciousness….Memories inform our actions, keep us company, and give us our noisy, ever-chattering sense of self. Because we are moody giants, every day we subtly revise who we think we are….

Without memories we wouldn’t know who we are, how we once were, who we’d like to be in the memorable future. We are the sum of our memories. They provide a continuous private sense of one’s self. Change your memory and you change your identity….

…Shared memories bind us to loved ones, neighbors, our contemporaries. The sort of memory I am talking about isn’t essential for survival, and yet it pleases us, it enriches everyday life. So couples relive romantic memories, families watch home movies, and friends “catch up” with each other, as if they’ve lagged behind on a trail…

…Picture yourself younger, and what image forms? Most likely it’s a static image, a snapshot someone took. Memories can pile up and become mind clutter; it’s easier to store them in albums. We remember our poses. Each photograph is a magic lamp rubbed by the mind. When we are in the mood, we can savor a photograph while sensations burst free….

From the Chapter entitled “Reflections in a Gazing Ball”…

…One excited person can somehow rally all the others. Stimulate one facet of a memory and the whole world can suddenly pop into mind…

…Add enough pieces to the mosaic and an individual finds shape. We take for granted these dazzling skills, and the most treasured gift of all, being able to time-travel and explore the lost kingdoms of yesterday. We may be the only animals with this rich form of episodic memory, in which we can revive our past, play it back like a film, we stop to look at, enter imaginatively, and revise as we grow older.

From the Chapter entitled “Remember What?”…

Say memory and almost everyone thinks of the past. But most of our memories are really about the future….

We complain about normal forgetfulness, but thank goodness we don’t have better memories….People cursed with comprehensive memories have minds like overstuffed closets – open the door and an avalanche pours out…Forgetting isn’t the absence of remembering, it’s memory’s ally, a device that allows the brain to stay agile and engaged….

So now I do not wonder, that my closets and my rooms look like avalanches, they are just reflections of my comprehensive memory! (Hah! Yet another excuse to give to my husband.) Thank you all for allowing me to be the excited person, to pour out the memories, just so my brain doesn’t overload, and short circuit soon….And yes, I still do not remember everything, so how about YOU start sharing your memories too? One last piece of advice from Ackerman:

Challenge, novelty, and rich environments can rejuvenate memory. So does gentle aerobic activity, and, quite possibly, eating a cup of blueberries each day.

So go out for a run, or play some badminton, have some berries, and remember away.....