Saturday, January 1, 2011

Memories

It can be said truthfully that I have a faulty memory.  Sometimes I can remember a recipe down to the ¼ tsp. and yet I am terrible at remembering birthdays.  You should have seen the look of shame I got at the pediatrician when I couldn’t remember Girl child 2’s birthday.  In my defense, she is only 7 months old and it took me years to remember Black Hair’s birthday. But that look from the nurse shamed me so bad that I now drill myself on the important details about the births of both of my children so that I will never be caught off guard again.  I also write them on my hand before we go in the doctor’s office.
One of my biggest fears is Alzheimer’s disease so I regularly do crossword puzzles and quiz myself on music trivia.  I Google random things every day so I can learn something new and keep my brain moving forward at a steady pace. I read cookbooks and make up recipes and write them down as soon as I make them up because just the other day someone reminded me of a recipe that I made pretty regularly for a while and I could not remember a single ingredient except spinach! 
Girl Child 1 asks me to tell her stories that I have told her before and I can’t remember a single detail.  She tries reminding me but while I can remember lying with her in the bed and snuggling while I made up fantastical stories, I don’t remember the witch who apparently stole people’s broccoli thus robbing them of essential nutrients and making their world’s dull and nutritionally defunct. But she does.
I sometimes worry about this major character flaw.  I try and try to remember things.  I apologize a lot.  I take copious notes at most meetings.  Did I mention I apologize a lot?
Other times I just remind myself of my good qualities.  Some of which I probably would not have if I could remember more.  I tell good stories.  I make up recipes.  I call my child by made up names because she thinks it’s funny and I don’t have to go through a list of names in my head.  I just call her Norbert and move on.  And I focus a lot on making memories for my daughters that will sustain them when they have moments of feeling insecure or unloved.  These memories will sustain them when I am no longer able to remember the details of their childhoods that they feel are so important.
I have a few memories that I hope are the last memories I have before I die.
 1-My beautiful 3 year old GC1 stands naked in the backyard with honey blond hair down her back (I was gardening and she stripped down and ran around with the water hose).  She holds the running water hose in the air and it pours water down over her hair as the sun sets behind her.  She is laughing that wonderfully innocent laugh of a small child and it was a moment of pure perfectness.
 2- I gave birth to GC2 while surrounded by my mother and my partner.  I did it after 22 hours of labor and a serious fear that I wouldn’t be able to do it, that something would go wrong.  She was born and the doctor laid her on my chest and we stared at each other for eternity.
3- I married the partner of my dreams in a small clearing in the woods.  My father gave us our first communion together and I ugly cried in front of a crowd.  Black Hair had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.
There are others.  As long as I have these, I will not beat myself up for forgetting the door knob when I went to Lowe’s, for forgetting red shirt day at GC1’s school thus ensuring that she was the only blue shirted dork in her class.
I will make up new spinach recipes. 
I will celebrate next Thursday to make up for forgetting our first date.  
I will research fair housing laws and ideas for housing department goals since I have forgotten what I did with the ones I wrote down last week. 
I will write every year in our Christmas journal so we all have a written account of all of the Christmases we have shared.
 Even though I totally disregarded the notation on the side of each page that denotes the type of recipe that’s on that page, I will write the recipes down so my girls have them some day. 
And I’ll try to remember to finish the story of the coop full of crazy so you are not left hanging, waiting with bated breath to see what happened next. 
Peace & Memories,
Earth Momma

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this so much. You are a very gifted writer. Love you.

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