Forgotten Memories

How many of us rely on “forgotten memories”? 

My question was prompted by Oliver Sacks’s article entitled “Speak, Memory” in the New York Review of Books.  In it he recounts his discovery, some years after publishing his memoir, that one of his most vivid childhood memories was false.  Not false, as in he made it up, but false as in it happened to someone else.  His memory was based an extensive and moving description of the event in a letter from his brother. He “remembered” the details of the event, but he “forgot” the source of the information.

His article went on to explore the difference between plagiarism and cryptomnesia.  Plagiarism implies intentionality, a conscious and willing misappropriation of someone else’s ideas or images.  By contrast, cryptomnesia (“hidden memory”) describes ideas and images that emerge in consciousness without memory of their source.  

Cryptomnesia, according to Sacks, can be a vital factor in creativity, insofar as it allows ideas and thoughts to be “reassembled, retranscribed, recategorized, given new and fresh implications.”  But how often is that “new idea” simply a remembering of an idea whose context or source you no longer remember?

Sacks has put a name to a phenomenon that has bothered me in recent months.  As I do my own blog and write guest posts on other blogs, I am constantly on the lookout for inspiration and use Google Alerts to find new sources on topics (memoir vs. fiction, letting go, mindfulness, risk-taking) that are of particular interest to me.  

Often, my new blog builds on an idea I’ve used before.  But often, it builds on someone else’s idea, much as today’s blog does.  I make a concerted effort to give credit to the author of the idea, but I do wonder how often I use an “idea” without realizing that it really isn’t mine, that I have “forgotten” where the idea came from.

This is, I think, a distinction that writers of all stripes (not just memoirists) should be sensitive to.  Aren’t we all “cryptomnesiacs”?!

                                                    
Mary Gottschalk 

www.Sailingdownthemoonbeam.com

http://twitter.com/marycgottschalk

http://www.facebook.com/MaryGottschalkWriter

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Short Story Review

"Article originally published for Helium Website  

'What Christmas is as We Grow Older.'
Originally published in 1851, Dickens speaks directly to the reader, using the voice of “we” to create an informal tone that connects him well to the reader.
Dickens explains that adults should celebrate relationships during the Christmas season the same ways they did as children. Dickens begins the short story with joyful images of Christmas Day experienced by many children. He compares the day to a “magic ring” within the first sentence and describes youth with “resolute hope” who are doted on by parents.

When these children grow to become adults, explains Dickens, a different type of Christmas emerges. Adults often look for a “pearl,” which is a desire to obtain fame or honor. The message is clear that there needs to be a return to the bright hopefulness and joy experience by children. Be thankful for the fond Christmas memories experienced as children.

Dickens writes several times about the Christmas “fire” families gather around at the holidays. The fire is noted within sentences that describe families who are affectionate toward one another and experience quality time. Although the fire could be explained solely as a literal object of wood and flames, it likely symbolizes warmth and gentleness of people as they relate to one another.
Dickens pleads for readers to remember the positive moments of childhood gathered around the Christmas fire. He points out the importance of embracing the qualities of forgiveness and friendship once felt as children at Christmastime. Be thankful, he writes, for relationships developed throughout the year and pay respects to loved ones who have passed.
Dickens spends a significant portion of the short story discussing the sadness many people feel at Christmas over the loss of loved ones. While many stories look solely at positive images of Christmas, Dickens acknowledges that the holiday season may evoke sadness and loneliness.
The writer proposes readers “receive” those people now by celebrating their lives and fond memories of the lost friends and family members. Dickens does not shy away from death or dark images, but instead tells readers to embrace memories of the deceased and hold them close by the Christmas “fire.”
Dickens has written several acclaimed novels and short stories.  Other Christmas short stories published by Charles Dickens include 'A Christmas Tree' (published in 1850) and 'The Poor Relation’s Story' (published in 1852).  The message to maintain childhood optimism as an adult remains a current theme of literary works today.
Christy Birmingham 
http://christywrites.hubpages.com/

http://www.midsizeinsider.com/en-us/profile/ChristyBirmingham

http://christy.knoji.com/expertise/all/articles/

Immune to Tragedies, Meandering between Jack-O-Lanterns

I am Severus Snape, the mysterious savior.
Only my eyes I have.
Only my eyes I can save….for now.
I go on stage soon.  Love me for however long I’m here.
Depression paralyzes the human spirit.  With time….I’m gone.
At forget-less thirty, I go to the ocean.
Jack-O-Lanterns, be no more.
I remember few girls, I remember many women.
I let them be.   I let them live without me.
I went on stage today.  Finished!  But you can’t teach the blues.
Lost trails are viral, both in my life and during passionate pursuits.
And now I’m sad because I’m leaving nothing but “alone.”
At forget-less thirty, I go to the ocean.
Jack-O-Lanterns, be no more.
Write these colors on my heart, which water washes away.
In denial of my rights to air, your smile brightens my day.
And I saw her in the audience today.  She, the color of purity.
I’m going insane, but it’s better than dying officially or internal.
So I’m medicated.  I believe in the heroic dolphins.
At forget-less thirty, I go to the ocean.
Jack-O-Lanterns, be no more.
And you said that intimacy wasn’t an option.
Like Riddle, my spirit was broken into seven.
Involuntarily, and each brake represents a murmur.
Every low point skips.  Cardiac arrest on the move.
The stage has vanished.  My fellow cast evolved separately.
I don’t know where life starts, and death ends.
At forget-less thirty, I go to the ocean.
Jack-O-Lanterns, be no more.
And I rose early today.  I’m sorry I did.
Last night, I rememorized memories miserably in mind.
I return to the stage next week.  I’ll finish strong.
And Papa, I’m sorry I didn’t listen….
Back when both eyes could gaze upon RADical hypocrisy.
I feel lost, because sorry doesn’t satisfy the apologies owed to many angels.
To Chelsea, Laura, and Ariel.  The first wave.
Kelsey, Chelsea, Summer, Eliya, Mary(s), and so on.
And Nicole, pretty angel, this line is for you.
“At forget-less thirty, I go to the ocean.
Jack-O-Lanterns, be no more.”
“Think of a memory, a very happy memory.”
And Remus Lupin is my definition for public education.
It’s three-thirty five, and the stage sets while anger rises.
For the Japanese Maples and Dogwoods wither in vain.
Space confuses me, and I wonder if Jah is flesh.
And witches are real.  They mock me from Thomas Leath and beyond.
Pumpkins ripen quickly in Dixie, that’s why horror is pre-carved.
I’m lonely for the haunted, so haunted, stop haunting me!
At forget-less thirty, I go to the ocean.
Jack-O-Lanterns, be no more.

Robert Alexander Deason          Peace

© All Rights Reserved

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"Heimat" - Home

I left Germany, my home country for Ireland, not exactly out of my own volition. For years, it was considered our permanent home. Eventually, I had the courage to lift what was virtually a life-sentence and  set myself free.

I have been feeling uprooted since our emigration. Even now from my American viewpoint, I still regard it as my home country. The following was written after my stint in Ireland. It's no surprise that these thoughts resurface now that I am back "home".

"What is home anyway, I pondered.  This concept, grounded for me in the German word, Heimat, cannot be translated into one English word.  Is it the place where you were born, where your cradle was, where you grew up, went to school, etc., or where you settled as an adult and had a family? Home is where your heart is, I hear people say.  Wherever it may be, it gives you a sense of belonging.  But what if you don’t have a home anymore in the broader sense of Heimat? By that, I don’t mean just a roof over your head and your family.  I mean from the stand point of refugees who have to leave their country for whatever reason and settle in elsewhere.  And reluctant expatriates like me.

I never really felt at home in Ireland during my married years, even though we eventually turned the farmhouse into a nice homestead.  I first lost my sense of belonging after leaving my geographical and cultural roots.  I lost more of it leaving my married life.

For three years I saw myself developing new roots with an Irishman and his family in Ireland, and I started to like the country.  I was again displaced when he gave me the boot.  First, to be with the man you love in a country you don’t like.  Then start to like the country by loving a man who turns out to be not your man or your love after all.

Since then, I have felt exiled more than ever.  It was not Germany that I missed.  Whenever I went back to my native country during those years, I had felt like a stranger there, too.  We had left in 1990 just when reunification came about.  That new political landscape caused overall changes in society in my view, more than other people seemed to notice.  Or maybe visiting once or twice a year made me a keener observer and more aware.

I didn’t even feel particularly German.  True, we spoke German at home, and I had put great emphasis on keeping up the language with the kids otherwise immersed outside our house in a sea of English speaking neighbors, friends, influences at school, on TV, etc.

My friends, not just the Irish ones, but also American lady friends, were forever telling me that I was so bloody German, because I am a meticulous person and worry over things which seem trivial to them: like being on time.  These are cultural hand-me-downs I can’t deny and find difficult to shake off.  My father brought me up that way, to do things right, or not bother at all.  He taught me that a train in Germany leaves at 8 o’clock when the timetable says so and not 8.03, and certainly not just because I’m not on the platform yet.

The way my friends pointed it out to me had often felt like a finger jabbed into an open wound – to be so stereotyped when you feel the same as everyone else about the Nazis.  “You are so effing German, you can’t fecking relax.” Or was that wrong, was it rather my own nature, being a perfectionist, which didn’t let me blend in? This being perceived as semi-robotic often hurt me over the years.

In contrast to Irish, English, or American people, I have no great sense of patriotism.  As a post-war German, you are not brought up to be proud of your nationality and country or its achievements, even though they exist.  As a German, even 60 years after the war, you still tread carefully when mentioning your nationality, depending on what country you’re in.  You know people have a reason to hold bad associations that you really can’t fault.

It’s not surprising to you when your kids are called Nazis or Hitler in school, starting very early.  This happened while we were still living down the country.  At the same time, some Irish people bestowed their admiration on us Germans, some venting nonsense like, “Germany is a great country, because the Kaiser sent us weapons to fight against the Brits.” Even generations and decades after the First World War.

The Brits still made me uncomfortable when they talked about the Blitz.  A lot of Dutch still hate us for having invaded and occupied their country.  And the Americans still have memories of their patriotic liberation of Europe from the Krauts or Huns (that’s us they think).  The Irish are extremely proud of their Irish identity; Americans love this great country of theirs; and the Brits – just like the Americans – have a tremendous sense of national pride in spite of some unsavory moments in their own history.  But let’s not go there.

For many years now, I have felt more like a citizen of the world without pin-pointing my nationality.  Often when abroad and asked where I was from, I just said Ireland.

And this is probably why my quest for a new partner included the search for a new sense of belonging.  My flexibility on the location indicated that the bond between that other person and me would carry more weight than latitude or locality."

And yet, do you pine more for your lost Heimat when you get older? I'm starting to wonder.  Or is it actually youth one longs for when wanting to go back to a place in one’s past that felt like home?

Siggy Buckley

Excerpt from "Next Time Lucky: Lessons of a Matchmaker"

Saved by Sarge

            Mrs. Sloan was 250 pounds of female brawn topped off by a wiry no nonsense Brillo pad bun of graying hair.   She had served her time honorably in the Army and mustered out a full sergeant to marry her ornery equal – an explosive bond doomed from the start.

I came to know her many years later through our occasional encounters at the common trash dump that served our adjoining properties.  Sloan had become the pillar of strength upon which Mrs. Lily Weathersby, the owner of the last great Victorian house on Riverside Avenue, relied.  As Mrs. Lily faded into the safety of her dotage, Sloan rode herd on the 30 rambunctious pre-schoolers who attended Mrs. Lily’s Little Blessings nursery school that kept her estate from falling into debt.  

It was a low day for me then as I descended our back stairs while gripping two bags of trash destined for the dump.  Things between my second husband and me were beginning to go wildly wrong.  I had been raised by a mother who was insatiably unsatisfied and displeased with me, and she left me with deep childhood wounds and self doubt.   Guilt, nagging fear and uncertainty constantly dogged my footsteps.   Wilbur was an angry, emotionally painful man to be tied to.  He knew my weaknesses and played them to the fullest.

 We had recently moved to Jacksonville.  I had no family, few friends and was left with little strength to summon forth what  I needed to make a stand against Wilbur’s anger and accusations.  I didn’t want to risk a divorce in my lonely world, and the fear of fueling a nasty nervous breakdown that had occurred a few years earlier hung over me like a waiting harpy from hell. 

Sloan and I exchanged the greetings of the day when I arrived at the trash dump.  She stood  dangling one arm over a wooden post that supported the fence,  leaning in slightly as she fished out a cigarette and lighter from her apron pocket.   With single handed ease she braced the cigarette between her teeth with thumb and forefinger, and lit it in commanding military fashion.   Then, she blew out the smoke, looked at me in sharp eyed awareness and addressed the moment with a lightening inspection of my countenance.

I didn’t think my distress was that obvious, but she swept me up in well-practiced scrutiny, put her free hand on her big hip and asked,  “So what’s made you look like some drowning cat going down for the last time?”   That did it.  I launched into a full account of my woes with Wilbur, the one who made it all seem so impossible.  Sloan didn’t bat an eye as she listened, but somewhere through my tale, I realized that a flood of old memories were boiling to the surface within her.  Then in an instant, she fixed a hard stare far away, shifted her weight and launched into a diatribe.

            “Ain’t that just like them damned men!   Had one 20 years ago.  Put out five kids in blood ‘n raised ‘em without a damned bit a help or thank you while he drank himself into meaness every day.   Some days just into pure ragin’ meaness.   Always promisin’ to change ‘n blamin’me for his trouble.  ’N me just puttin’ up ‘n takin’ it ‘cause I’m blamin’ myself thinkin’ I’m  too military and not female enough to be a good wife.  ‘Sides, I thought those kids needed a daddy ‘n I didn’t have the money to get out anyhow.  Just couldn’t get up no back bone with that son of a bitch.

            Then one day I was in the bathroom sittin’ there on top of the toilet seat crying by myself.  ‘N I said to God, ‘Tell me what to do ‘cause I can’t take it no more ‘n I’m just plain wore out.’

              ‘N I swear by god, I heard Him speak to me right there ‘n then.  ‘N He said,  ‘You stand up and defend yourself and those kids, an’ you be proud of yourself,  ‘n I’ll be with you ever’ step of the way.’  Well, I knew what I heard ‘n I believed Him.  I got up off that toilet, put my coat on, wrapped those kids up in the car ‘n drove away as far ’n  as fast as I could get.  ‘N that worthless bastard was too damn drunk to even know I left.

            Well, I had it tough alright, but I didn’t look back.  Found my way ‘n raised those kids up right with what I had in me.  ‘N God stayed with me all the way.  I knew I was gonna‘  be all right.  Never turned back.  ‘N I ain’t never let no damn man tell me what to do again.”

            She took one last deep drag on her cigarette, threw it to the ground, crushed it out with her heel and headed back to the nursery school playground that rang with the chaos of squeals, kids and pre-school screams.  I am not sure that she even remembered I was there.   But oh, I had listened carefully.  Something out there knew what I needed to hear, and I knew exactly what I had heard.  Three months later, Wilbur and I were divorced.

            Soon after that Mrs. Lily had a stroke and Mrs. Sloan stayed with her in the great house until she passed on.  I lived on my corner for a while, lonesome but safe with a future waiting to be made.  Some say Sloan inherited the great house after Mrs. Lily passed on, but I never saw her again.

©   12/13/10                  

Sandy Hartman www.eonwriter.com

Celebration in Music

                                 (To my lifelong friend Linda, who is a musician) 

When I think about celebration especially around holiday times, I think of music.  Our hearing sense, stimulated can summon emotion.  A sound can alert us to a sense of all-rightness, or not, or even a memory.  When we hear a song from our youth or one we first heard at an important event, we are transported back to that time by our memories.  Yes, it can be a sad memory as in the passing of a loved one or the marriage of a young relative with the inevitable moving away.  But more so we interpret it as being so personal as to be specific to our history and a reflection of our feelings and personality, alone. 

Everyone has a favorite song.  It may change through time, but at a given moment you do have one.  The song seems to have been written just for you.  You may even think that by some strange twist of fate, the writer has “tuned” in to your feelings and crafted this piece to reflect your on-going trials and tribulations; and maybe even to “guide” you.  My favorite song now, is “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry.  Although I knew this song was perfect as soon as I heard it, I tried very hard to NOT like it.  After all, the theme is about a young woman’s death and her Mother carrying on.  To any Mother, there isn’t a more emotionally charged issue than something that affects her child.  Then I have to ask myself, if it wasn’t the subject matter that endeared me to it, what meant so much more to me than the words meanings?  I decided it had to be the voice of the singer.  So beautiful, clear and even a little haunting, it “spoke” to me, a person with limited technical musical skills, by joining with the unkind words into a delivery that was received as personal and heartfelt.

Is it something that is “wired” in our brains that makes us feel like this?  And here I am assuming that everyone is touched by a particular song.  A song that they identify with more than any other, that perhaps was written and performed “just for them”.  Or is it just human nature to be sentimental or “weepy” when we are audience to a particular musical piece.  Is it perhaps the combination of instruments, skill of the conductor, or the perfect acoustics that can bring on our emotion?  I think we make it personal because some of us realize that music can feed our souls, nurture our desire for these specific feelings, and make that part of our mind whole again for a while, by these alternating cravings and sustenance.

And what better to feed ourselves on than something so “high minded” and eternal as music.  Yes, eternal.  After a song is born it lives on through other artists and performers.  We all have strong feelings about “remakes” of music we are attached to.  When a musician passes, we all know whose song it really is when we hear it in its updated or reworked forms.  Now with electronic and web capabilities of clarifying, storage and “global” transmittance, it seems music is indeed eternal.  What better than music not to stand as a memorial to its creator, but to be a moving inducement, a shared celebration from its creator out to everyone.

Connie Neff

Clear Path Writer (her website is under construction;see Facebook link to contact her.)