For the entire summer, and the beginning of fall, I worked at a place called UNC Horizons. It’s a substance abuse program for women who are either pregnant or have small children.
Posts Tagged ‘ memory ’
the broken past
There are three ways we seem to look at our past. First, as antiquarians, we see the past as something to be venerated and sanctified. If you ever find yourself nostalgic for a time since gone, for home, wherever and whatever that might be, you might be an antiquarian. We also have a tendency to monumentalize the past. We look at the giant ideas and people that came before us and strive for the greatness they once knew. I will, every now and again, find myself at a sporting event or a political rally and someone will sing the anthem or America the Beautiful, or something of that ilk and tears will come to my eyes as I think of all that has been accomplished in American history and all the good that we are capable of with all the power we possess. These moments are always tempered by the bad that has been done in American history, but the good is still there and that hope is what pushes me forward. In these moments I am a monumentalist. Finally, we can be critical of our history. We can understand our past as so much rubble to be sifted through.
it burns
“Memory is shaped by forgetting just as the shore is shaped by the sea” Marc Augé How do you perform your memories? Do you wear them on your sleeves? Can I read your memories in the same way that I read your personality? The way you wear your hair or where you choose to place your tattoos? Is it on your All Stars, or in the way you sashay? Our memories flow from everything we do and say. Take for example the time I learned how to walk. I was 11 years old and in middle school when a couple of boys slapped the books out of my hand, knocked me over, and told me I walked like a girl. I thought that maybe if I learned how to walk like a boy I might not have such a hard time and so began my 6th grade reconnaissance mission: operation “walk like a man.” I found nooks and crevices around campus to hide in while others walked to class or the cafeteria. I waited and took notes. Copious notes. When I got home I snuck out to the alley ways around our house and practiced, sometimes for hours, until the
forgetting & remembering\/\/music is my time machine
A year ago my hard drive crashed and I lost the music collection I’d been building since college. Much of the music I listened to regularly I had in albums on CD, but a good portion of the songs I lost were from various bits and pieces of soundtracks and compilations, mixes gifted from friends, albums I no longer liked and CDs acquired as a joke and then neglected. The kind of songs I’d forget I had until they came up in the playlist. At one point I’d backed up all of these stray songs on a variety of miscellaneous mixes I made for things like road trips or mowing the grass; I liked to throw in surprises to shake things up. But when my hard drive crashed, not long after a +1000 mile move, and I couldn’t remember the fate of these made-for-discman CDs. Music is said to help aid memory retention. So is repetition. This means its easier to learn state capitals or the letters of the alphabet when they’re set to a tune, but it also explains some of the contents of my music collection. I have songs, decades old, that I hated when they first came out.
go tell it on the mountain\/\/the memory is born
There is a small mountain in the Jordan Rift Valley called Massada. It’s hard to determine when something stops being a hill and starts being a mountain. I think the best we can do is climb the thing and see how we feel once we get to the top. Did we get our ass kicked on the climb, or was it more of an enjoyable afternoon stroll in an upwardly direction? Massada will kick your ass. A little over a month ago I began climbing Massada just about every day. You can read about why here, if you’re so inclined. The first time I went up it was about 9am, and just over 100 degrees. When I got to the top I looked over the valley and the dead sea below. In the vicinity I had one of the highest views over the lowest place on earth. It is absolutely breathtaking. But that’s not why people come to Massada, or at least not the only reason. Massada is what Pierre Nora would describe as a milieu de memoire, a site of memory. For Nora we have sites that store our national and personal memories. These sites (memorials, battlefields, national historic
don’t let boredom take you in
Did you know that boredom has several categories? That it can lead to depression? Social problems? Don’t give in to the depths of boredom! improve your brain and memory with these activities: puzzles crosswords simon says fly swatter language games sticky fingers glue inhaling cat chasing jelly beans Boredom can lead to death! Keep yourself focused and alert at all times, or end up in the chains of the of the dead zone. “Boredom is a reactive state of emotion that interprets the condition of one’s environment as wearingly dull due to repetitive, non-existent or tedious stimuli. Boredom stems from a lack of interesting things to see, hear, or do (physically or intellectually) when not in the mood of “doing anything.” (via Wikiquote)
