Let me start with a video created by someone named Mamta B. Herland. It lays claim to surreality and I have no argument there. It is also extraordinary. Something special, and seasonal to boot.
The caption that went along with it reads like this:
Autumn leaves become shapes, gestures, and fragments of bodies, carried by wind and curiosity. In Between Wind and Feet, they gather, stretch, wander, and play, hovering between nature and imagination, chance and choreography. A hand touches; a boot interrupts. Movement becomes stillness, and play becomes awareness. In this uncertain space, the familiar turns strange, asking what we notice, what we overlook, and how one small gesture can change everything. The leaves move, and for a moment, we move with them.
If you want a treat, and an exhibition of what an awfully creative mind and pair of hands can produce, here is a link to her website. Worth a browse, at least it was for me.
******
******
I’m not sure how many articles I’ve read on the subject of memory, but it’s a bunch. I do remember when I first became a serious student of memory. My children had all left home for college and my first wife had moved on to better things as well. This was a major empty-nest time of life for me. ‘The epiphany came on a holiday when the kids were home on break and we were sitting around after a meal and free-associating.
I would repeatedly say things like “Do you remember when …….” and then insert what I thought had happened back in that particular day. The echoes of my voice would have barely died away when one of the children would exclaim “No, Dad, that’s not right, what happened was ….” and they would tell their version of the same episode.
For a while I would try to rebut what they said, but at long last I withdrew from the fray and began to ponder. In each case, I realized, there were three possibilities. One, that I was correct in what I remembered. Two, that the daughter or son was right. Three, neither of us had it nailed. Along with this came the realization that I would never know the actual truth of the matter, since in most cases there were only two people involved and we had just disagreed on important details. I also realized that it didn’t matter nearly as much as I had previously thought. We were not in court, no one’s life depended on our being in accord.
I do remember mentioning this to those lovely kids of mine on a couple of these occasions. Wasn’t it interesting how different our recollections could be, and what tricks memory played in our minds, and it was what the story meant to the teller that was the most important thing, wasn’t it? Their answer was “No, Dad, you were just wrong.”
At about the same time there was a ferment in the area of child abuse. Research studies were emerging that were in agreement about how to interview the victims, and the specialty of forensic interviewer had emerged. As pediatricians we were cautioned not to take detailed interviews when we were presented with a situation where abuse was suspected or claimed, but to report the case and wait for the specialists to handle that sensitive part of the investigation.
Why? Because study after study showed that the child’s story often changed with each interview, until by the third one it had become highly unreliable. And at each stage of these interactions, the victim believed that they were telling the truth. Part of the explanation was felt to be that the child instinctively wanted to please the interviewer and would sense where the questions were leading. Gradually the child would supply answers that they thought were what the adult wanted to hear. (It’s what kids do.)
What was the lesson once again? Memory is not a rock solid item.
So by now I have told my own stories … how many times? How close were they and are they to what actually happened? I have no idea. When I think about them now, they are more like parables, with a lesson tucked in there for me to learn and remember and share. I’ve lived long enough that some of the characters in those tales are no longer with us, and it is the parable that survives.
******
Speaking of storytellers, Bruce Springsteen is one of the best. This one is for all of who have lost someone. Which is a whole lot of people. We’ve gone through looking at the empty chair, seeing the shirt in the closet that isn’t claimed, listening for the absent voice on the phone. Bruce wrote this after the September 11 attacks, but its relevance has no date attached.
******
Creation
Every atom that is me
Was here from the most ancient time
It has been part of something else, somebody else
Before
Each drop of water trapped inside each of my cells
has traveled from cloud to stream
To river, to sea
To cloud and back again
Has lived in other creatures
Nourished animals on the far side of the world
Somewhere in my genes
There is matter from my first ancestor
Unchanged
Their life encoded with mine
Everything they saw, smelled, and feared is there
And when the I no longer is
Everything the I was
Is shared with those who follow
All my elements are borrowed
To be returned when I am done with them.
******
******
One interesting part of this season is that neither Robin nor I have seen any of those v-shaped flocks of geese or cranes flying over, with their wild honking or croaking. Perhaps the mild weather explains it, although our hummingbirds are long since gone from the feeders. Our backyard ash trees have nearly done with dropping their leaves. They were almost the first in the neighborhood to do so when usually they are among the last. July and August were brutal here, with high temperature records falling nearly every week.
But although the ash trees were early this year, they were at their best. The colors of the leaves were spectacular golds and oranges and reds.
We’ve had several short rains since the leaves fell, so they are all still there on the ground, waiting for me. Because there is a five-foot fence around the entire back yard, I can’t count on those leaves blowing over to the neighbor’s property, which would be ideal.
I don’t ordinarily have issues with my back, but just thinking about a rake will give me a twinge, and actually picking one up … never a pretty thing afterward. So I ordinarily use the lawn mower, outfitted with a collection bag. To make this work, everything must be dry as toast. However it transpires, whatever is not picked up this Fall will be there waiting for me in the Spring.
******
******
