It occured to me about three months ago that my mind was probably on it’s slow and steady decline. Lord willing I still have the best years in front of me. But as it concerns memories, I felt this sense of panic, as if I had better sit down right then and there and start writing down everything in my life that mattered. I imagined myself trying to do this excercise at the age of 67 and it prompted me to grab my Moleskin and start writing.
1972. Born. UK Hospital. Come home to Lily Court. The world is strangely black and white.
There was little more I could put down for this year. I could have noted that Nixon was President and that the Munich Summer Olympics were marred by some of Arafat’s cronies who murdered eleven Israeli athletes, but then that wouldn’t have been very personal.
1973. Not much more here…possibly object permenancy?
I always wondered how scientists came up with the object permenancy thing. How did they figure out for sure that at a certain point a baby is conscious of the fact that when you leave the room that you still exist. This seems tricky because apparantly it occurs before language or long term memory.
I wrote down a year per page from 1972 to 2010, and started filling in the white space with whatever came to mind. Sometimes the memories came with time stamps, sometimes not. Quickly this journal excercise turned into investigative reporting. Luckily we live in the age of Facebook and Twitter, which meant that I could contact the girl I chased through the playground in 3rd grade and ask her if it was the Summer of ’80 or ’81 when she showed me the distinct differences between girls and boys.
My motives at first seemed straight forward. I simply wanted to capture everything I could remember before it slipped further into the chasms of my brain where recall was unlikely. But as I looked at this time map, I realized that maybe I would gain some other benefits. It was possible that I might gain some insight. Or even clarity.
A time map of 38 years might produce some answers. Looking at the bigger picture, I might see a trajectory, or a pattern. Did my 2nd grade teacher really turn me off from Education for twenty some years or was it something else? Did the fact that I sat the bench on a Church basketball league lead me to the self-destructive behavior I exhibited during most of the 90′s? How much damage did Bible college really do to my spiritual formation?
Or even worse, what if I could find no answers at all? Or what if only chaos came out of all this…chaos?
My journey re-connected me with some old friends. I found myself Christmas shopping at the Mall where I grew up with my closest childhood friend Chris. He had turned into a soulful, compassionate man with a heart for Jesus – which thrilled me. And yet a few others came out of the woodwork that reminded me why I was so glad to leave High School.
Staring at the 2010 page, I have written down a few things but without the benefit of hindsight. It takes time to know how an event will echo in your life. It has to take root in your consciousness and then over time it will produce either a flower or a weed. Do I have any more control over that process now that I’m in my 30′s (ok late 30′s) and hopefully a little wiser than when I was eighteen?
I look at the pages following 2010 and wonder where it will come to an end. 2053? 2011? It’s enough to make me turn off the television and go outside; to surprise my Wife, or call my Mother. Or to buy a total stranger’s groceries in the line behind me at Kroger. The most exciting thing to me is this: while much of life might happen to me, I can create much of what goes down on the rest of these pages.
Share one of your memories with me – or one you intend on making this year. Comments are below.
