Object Permanence
I wrote this almost two weeks ago and am late to post. I’ve been running behind for a while now. My head is somewhat better. The blossoms are gone. I still don’t feel like I have a good grasp of anything, though. That’s continuity!
This time of year reminds me to challenge immutability by focusing on transformation: shifting, not ending; different, not dead. A new list of microseasons I’m working on:
March 29: Last night’s rain falls from tree buds
April 5: Worms come to the surface under moonlight
April 12: Bugs get trapped in windowsill
April 19: Magnolia flowers sit like lotuses on branches
April 26: Blossom petals fall, giving way to leaves
Things I’ve learned about myself as a result of a mild concussion:
It physically hurts to think too intensely so the best course of action has been to let things go.
The sympathy I receive from people feels unearned because I hit my head on an open cupboard door in my kitchen, a door that I left open.
Some mornings, within the first few minutes of waking, my head feels so heavy, as if it’s full of dreams.
Every day that I don’t have a headache makes me feel like I’ve crawled out of a hole in the ground and up into a flowering meadow. Do moles feel this way? Or do they feel the opposite? In any case I feel I am the opposite of a mole.
Today outside the coffee shop I overheard a young woman say, I only get guys because I don’t try to get guys. People appear when you’re not looking for them. But isn’t the opposite true, too? If you don’t think about someone long enough, eventually they disappear. I like to think that in this way, you can will someone out of existence. And if they re-appear, well that would be some miracle.
I always wanted to be an archaeologist, to excavate on all levels. I had nearly all my Anthropology credits—until it came to statistics, for which I would have had to re-take Math 12 in order to qualify. I opted for an English Literature degree.
In the grocery store, I talk myself out of buying snacks. I pick up a long rectangular box of seaweed-flavoured Ritz crackers ($2.98), cradle it in my arms with the rest of my groceries (palm sugar, rice paper wrappers, Thai basil), and then remember I have rye bread in the freezer, maybe an open packet of saltines in the tin on the counter, or why don’t I just make crackers? I’ll forget about these. The seaweed flakes would get stuck in my teeth. I put the Ritz back but of course I don’t forget them. And I remember because they now represent another thing, something I don’t examine too closely because it makes my head hurt.
I’ve noticed that instances of my remembering are now coupled with the feeling of surprise. A memory of a long walk one night last summer. The pitch and timbre of someone’s voice. A conversation that didn’t end well. I often ask myself, How could I have ever forgotten this? I guess it’s easy when there is so much one takes in. Things get subsumed, not sucked out into a void. Just put somewhere else, one big pile, the midden of the mind, to fossilize and dig up later. Time will make it look different, maybe more interesting or beautiful, its sharp edges worn away. It will be an artifact. A tool, imparting knowledge. Priceless.
