Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Friday 8 April 2011

I can hide my own Easter Eggs

 Paper Chipmunk expressed it beautifully in her reply to one of my comments on her latest post 'my marbles feel a bit looser and more willing to roll away.... ' Though the past tense may be more appropriate in my case at the moment, I have been doing too much and  I think my marbles have hit the floor and are under the table being batted about by the cats.

As I have whinged before, my memory is shot.  This is sometimes an embarrassment - think totally forgetting the name of one of your sisters in law - who happens to have been married to your brother for over thirty years.  I am very bad at assigning names to faces.  I have joked when I run into one of the other swimmers at a shopping centre that I don't recognise them with their clothes on, but it is more fundamental than that.  Out of context things and people move firmly into the unknown realms. 

It is often frustrating, but I have learnt that I need lists.  Lots of lists.  Which I virtually never complete despite cheating and always adding an easy thing (like clean teeth or feed cats) to my lists.

We had our kitchen redesigned about ten years ago but I still from time to time reach out for the knife block and can't find it - because I have reached for it in its old position.  And sometimes, particularly when I am tired, words will escape me.  They are in my head, I can feel them there, but I cannot either compel or cajole them to emerge.  Instead either I am left mouthing with nothing emerging or the wrong one will pop out.  Until I went to Antarctica I called pelicans albatrosses, knowing as I said it that it was the wrong word.  Now they are the p birds.  I cannot say their names, but I can type them.  Cushions are another problem word.  Easily typed, stuck behind the throat.  Also scissors.  These words are some of the ones that I regularly misplace.  Others come and go.  Weird.  And if the Freudians out there have any explanation please keep them to yourself.

However, after repeatedly visiting and commenting on Paper Chipmunk's latest post I am starting to think of the positives to having a sadly deficient memory.

I have said that I can reread murder mysteries because I don't remember who died, much less who killed them.  True, but if I am being honest, they are not the only books I forget.  So I can reapply myself to books on the groaning shelves where I have only a faint memory of pleasure and be excited all over again.  And I can't really complain about that.

I have vague ideas about what is in the garden, but each season as the perennials re-emerge I am pleased and surprised and my daily walks become exciting voyages of discovery.

And the same applies to art works.  Recently I saw a picture of one of Brancusi's sculptures, and was immediately filled with lust and longing.  I wanted to hold it, and I loved what it said to me.  But I had forgotten his work completely.





And then I thought of the pleasure I could get from rediscovering so many things.   Things to see, things to do, things to savour.  And yes, it is likely I will come across some horrors in there too - but I probably won't remember them.  Or not clearly at any rate.

I can and do get depressed, but find it difficult to stay that way when I can't remember the details of what prompted my descent to the depths.  Another win.

So this year I may just test the waters and see if I can indeed hide my own eggs.  And I am already smiling at the prospect of opening a cupboard and finding an unexpected treat.

10 comments:

  1. I have occasional memory problems too, but I think mine are because I haven't heard things properly, so I don't take in enough information.
    I'm a list maker too, having lists that transfer to newer longer lists, which then transfer to even longer lists....then one day I'll look at a list and screw the whole thing up without doing any of the things on it, and start over.

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  2. The only list i make is a shopping list but what's the point when i end up buying more than what's on the list then kick myself for not sticking to the list you just can't win sometimes :-).

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  3. Oh! The irony! I just wrote out a big comment and Google dumped it. Now I have to try to remember what I've just written. Heh heh.

    Funny to be reading this now. I had a complete meltdown this morning due to my short term memory problems. But now I'm smiling.

    I find I mix up the names of appliances. I'll say I'm putting the laundry in the wash when I obviously mean the dishes in the … what ya call it that's not the oven and not the refrigerator, although I mix those up too. I guess as long as I don't bake the milk cartons yet I'm ok. In my studio, I often find supplies I have no memory of (even recently) acquiring. I also find books on my shelf that I was thinking of buying, not realizing I'd already done that. It's like Christmas. Yesterday my doctor asked me how old I was, and I couldn't remember. I guess I can just make up an age.

    Have you always had problems with face recognition? This is something that actually long predates my M.S. Do you have a lousy sense of direction as well? They go together for some. This is actually a recognized condition with a name (which escapes me at the moment…ho ho). Oliver Sachs has even written about it--he suffers from it himself. It can be extremely socially awkward in a small community, where you run into people you know all the time….well, they seem to know me, at any rate! Interesting… I imagine that even if you didn't have the problem to begin with, if there's involvement with that same part of the brain… ? I do have to say, now that the short term memory problems have been added to the mix… it's enough to cause social anxiety of a sort. A while back I met someone who, as we were parting ways, said she needed to tell me something. "Please don't be offended if I don't recognize you if I see you in town. I have trouble recognizing faces." I wanted to hug her! Up to then, I'd never known anyone else who'd ever mentioned it.

    At any rate, I'm glad you liked my rolling marbles. Thanks for the kind mention. And, dang, I love that Easter egg idea…!

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  4. PS I love that mental image of the black cats batting around your marbles!

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  5. Appliance names escape me too. I had forgotten that. And once I threw the milk under the bed and only realised when my shoes didn't fit in the milk compartment. Oops.
    Face recognition has always been a bit of an issue - but it is now much, much worse. Direction sense on the other hand I have. Which is good because the smaller portion emphatically doesn't.
    And yes, I am not surprised you wanted to hug the woman who admitted to similar problems to ours. I have to keep reminding myself that many people are like ducks - they look all serene, sailing along, but I can't see their little legs going hell for leather out of sight.

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  6. I could have written this. Maybe I did write this, and then I forgot. Let me know.

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  7. Perhaps you did Murr, perhaps you did.

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  8. I love this, EC - full marks for you for turning it into a positive!

    I'm a list-maker too. Have to be or I'd forget EVERYTHING.

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  9. Interesting about your response to the Brancusi sculptures, I've never been able to see what is so appealing about them.

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  10. Lucy Tartan: My smaller portion is with you in finding them a bit yeah so what. But I had forgotten how much I love them which is the important/sad bit. And now I have them back again. A plus.

    Thanks Kath - I think I have to find the positives. And my black sense of humour soitently helps.

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