How to Make a Memory Stick

It starts with Harry Potter and an image that sticks in my mind... of Snape or Dumbledore or whomever, expertly wielding a wand in a pool to extract vivid memories that come straight out of someone else's brain. (Admittedly, I'm no expert on Harry Potter lore and that might not be the 'truth' of the story...


That image has been surfacing regularly in my mind in the last few months. Usually as I tromple the local woods, more or less alone (the dog is very handsome but not much of a conversationalist.)



Without the interruptions of daily life and other people, I've been able to let my thoughts wander. To memories from old times, and good times, and even not-so-good times.


In my mind, those memories are vivid and fabulous and true.

And I've wondered... how do we save and share those memories?

• Is there some kind of magic wand we can use to extract them?  Is there a memory stick??
• And if there is no magic wand, what else can we do to make those memories stick? 

So this thought has been bouncing around my head for a few months. Many times, I've really wanted a magic wand / memory stick. I've really wanted to pull those vivid and fabulous and true memories from my head and share them with others.  Thinking that others might find them interesting as 'the record' of the past (old times, good times and not-so-good times.) Just as I would love to pull the vivid and fabulous and true memories from the heads of the people in my circle. I want to know 'the record' of their lives.

Except that there probably is no 'record'.  Yes, there are memories. Yes, they are vivid and they are fabulous.  But true?  Maybe not so much.


I was reminded of this last week. One sister, one brother and I went to visit my eldest sister who has always been the family historian. Her truth has been unassailable. As we shared our vivid and fabulous and true memories of Expo '67 (yes, we were all sentient; yes, we are all that old), we fully expected that we would need some gentle correction from our historian. But we needed much more than 'gentle' correction, as most of our memories were being revealed as wildly inaccurate. We each had indelible images of singular events which NO ONE ELSE could corroborate (certainly not our historian.) In my case, for example, there was (apparently) NO covered dragon slide that went from the inside of the second story of a restaurant down to the ground outside, as I so vividly recall.


One sister, one brother and I kept deferring to the historian... convinced even more that she had the only true memory stick in the family. "Linda, what happened then? Who got lost?! It was you? You and Randy?? Wasn't it me?? What do you mean we didn't have to wear those awful matching shifts every single day?  We had shorts?? I don't remember any shorts!"

And we looked to our eldest sister/historian to correct our apparent memory lapses and give us the truth. Until she slipped... Big Time.  Interestingly, I can't even recall what her slip was. But immediately we knew. One sister, one brother and I realized that even her truth was assailable.

But there was no judgment.  Because, in the end, it didn't really matter what the 'truth' was. Memories aren't truth. They are vivid and they are fabulous. And that can be enough.

Especially when we find ways to share them - either by swapping recollections with those who were 'there'  or telling tales to others in a way that helps them feel what you think you were feeling at the time.

That is how to make a memory stick. (No magic wand required.)

Grouse on Grouse on Grouse

When it was still warm outside (so many months ago now), my husband and I were sitting on our back deck with our end-of-the-evening cocktail.  Relaxing. Chilling. Comfortable silence.

Until we heard a sound... khkhkhkuuoo-uuoo-uuoo-uuoo

We're thinking "Owls.  Cool, we have owls!" 

But the sound continued... khkhkhkuuoo-uuoo-uuoo-uu  khkhkhkuuoouuoouuoouu
And we were no longer so sure about owls.  It was a different sound. But still really cool. 

And the coolest part was that the sound flitted around us, as a 'call and response'.  We'd hear it from a house or two above us, then from the direct left, then from somewhere to the right and down a little ways.  Finally, we heard the sound from a scant 7 feet away, in the underbrush of our 'natural' back yard. ('Natural' just means we've given up trying to tame the dandelions and thigh-high grasses that flourish up our little hill.)

And we realized that these sound-making things were very low to the ground. Couldn't be owls at all. 

So what could they be?  Seemed vaguely bird-like.  But it was night and pitch-black all around us. So definitely not starlings or robins or woodpeckers... and not your typical birdsong anyways.

So we listened.  And thought.  And wondered.  Until...

OMG! We have grouse!

OMG! OMG!  Of course we have grouse! Because we live on the side of (wait for it...) Grouse Mountain! 

It was a magical moment and a magical night.  The grouse trilled and warbled and communicated. Their many points of sound created an aural web around us while we savoured our G&Ts.

Shortly after that night, the boy was hired on Grouse Mountain. He works in the cafeteria as a cashier and busboy.  He has a nice blue shirt, a tidy black fleece and a name tag that says "Will - North Vancouver" on it.

At first, he'd come home with only a few tidbits about his new work experience, due to an overall air of uncertainty that kept him surprisingly short on words. This was his first job, so he had some things to learn about being an employee and taking instruction from others.

But after a handful of shifts, he began to feel at home in his new environment and his tongue loosened considerably. His stories came faster and furious-er and were more characteristically... embellished. (After all, one should never sacrifice a good story on the altar of the truth!)

He trilled, he warbled. He recounted his words, his co-workers' words and his supervisors' words in his own version of 'call and response' with his colourful descriptions of a worker's life on Grouse Mountain...

Most importantly, he communicated.

And we enjoyed the wall of sound as we savoured our G&Ts.



PS - this grouse is pretty cool also: 

It wasn't what I expected (but it ends well)

I was recently reminded by an old friend that there was a time (about 8 years back) when one of my signature phrases was "It wasn't what I expected".

 

Typically, I would be muttering this phrase after looking at the meal I'd ordered. Sometimes that meal would pass the visual test but then fail to measure up in the taste or texture department.

He and I were friends at work, so many lunches were consumed together and meals played a large part in our friendship. But admittedly that phrase bled over into other parts of my work and home life.

• Hmmm, I appreciate getting a raise, but when it's not quite enough to buy one Starbucks coffee a week... ?  
• Hmmm, our first kid seems bright enough and people say she's kind of cute, but that weird fainting, gasping thing where her eyes roll back in her head... ? 

"It wasn't what I expected"

One phrase. Loaded with disappointment.

Later (about 4 years back), my standard became less about expecting too much and instead about expecting the worst. A colleague of mine asked me about that tendency. He was an optimist (of the overflowing glass variety) so he didn't really understand it at all. I remember telling him that I'm less likely to be disappointed with what actually happens if I always expect the worst. I thought this would mean I'd be continuously pleasantly surprised when the worst did not happen.

So I pretty well veered from one extreme to the other.

From always expecting too much to expecting nothing at all.



Extremes are good, right? Shows conviction and certainty, right??

Well... maybe not so much.

Pretty late in the game (my second half-century learnings), I've realized that neither of these are on anyone's list of the keys to happiness.

So I am going less with Expectations and more with Events.

Kind of a flow, chi, zen sort of thing. (Midzen, remember?) The key is to be more open to events as they unfold and to find something enjoyable and just a little bit wonderful out of each event.

What in hell am I talking about, you ask? (Judging, judging... you could be bit more zen yourself...)

Since I started talking about food, I'll end that way too. A&W is my guilty pleasure for fast food - a rare treat every few months.

• So I go and order my Teen Burger - no onions - and a rootbeer.
• The burger arrives chock full of onions, the lettuce is wet and the bun is soggy.

In days past, it would not have been what I expected and I would have been annoyed. And even if I'd been expecting the worst and this is what I'd got, I would still have been annoyed (that 'pleasantly surprised' thing never really happened.)


So I focus instead on this particular event:

• The burger is warm 
• I have to scrape out the onions, so I get all of that mustardy, ketchupy goodness on my fingers 
• I bite and find that the bacon is just exactly crispy enough
• I take a long pull at the rootbeer and appreciate the melty puddles that the frosty mug has left on the table
• I glance up at my kid across the table, happy to have him here (ok, ok, he's pushing french fries into his mouth with both hands and kind of scowling at the same time, but that's his happy face when he's with me)

Turns out, this is a pretty wonderful moment.

Soggy buns be damned! 

More Tunes for the Road Trip (the Festive Alt playlist)

Do you ever fall out of the habit of listening to music?


I do.

And it's awful!

Yes, yes, it's good to keep current on the important news  But getting traffic 'every 10 minutes, on the 1's'? Is that really necessary when my commute to work is 7 minutes down one road?

When I finally go back to the tunes, my first thought is 'WTF was I thinking, listening to traffic reports for a month?!'

So here I am, grooving to my Festive Alt playlist ('cuz it's close to Christmas, after all).  And loving every second of it.  Bif Naked, Weezer, The Raveonettes... all Classic Christmas Carolers!

I listen and go 'whoa! this is good'.  Then the next one 'whoa! this is gooder.' And I keep turning up the volume. On the computer. Then on the speakers. Then I'm searching for 11!

And I start arm dancing. I'd be full dancing, but I'm sitting here typing so the legs are stuck to the chair and it's just the arms that can let loose from time to time. (Kind of like Thom Yorke, but I use both arms...)

Like when I'm driving and the song is particularly awesome (pretty well anything by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Sleigh Bells).

Some people are picking their noses in the privacy of their car - I'm arm dancing like a moron.

No shame, baby, no shame.

(Shoot, just turned up the sound again. Verging on 11)

Am now in the anti-Christmas part of my playlist, like:

• Christmas at the Office Party with the refrain "Christmas, F&*k ya, F&*k ya, F&*k ya" by the Fugitives
• "Bizarre Christmas Incident" by Ben Folds (cuz "Santa got his big ass stuck, Mrs. Claus is gonna sue my ass" - lawyers love this one!) 
•  Blink 182 with their ode to jail time, due to an unfortunate incident with carollers. 

But despite the anti-C music, I do like Christmas. Here's my list of faves:

• Christmas lights - Whether tasteful, gaudy, delicate or grand, sparkly, subtle or shiny. It's all good. 
• Christmas trees - Ours is a collection of fairly random stuff, but I particularly like long shiny drippy things, coloured glass and stuff that needs to be explained. 
• Fruit cake - Mine has lots of dried fruit and bourbon and makes my stomach hurt if I eat too much (which is pretty well every time I eat it)

Lots of other good things, of course - family and friends being high on that list. 

So from our dope family to yours... have a Very Merry!

(And a Fabulous 2015!)

L'auteur (est moi)

I was recently reminded by a friend that I'm supposed to be writing the great Canadian novel.

She's suggested a thinly veiled parable about shenanigans at a large, disorganized financial institution.  The characters will be fictional, of course (because there's no way you'd know who "Mesley" is, right?)

Can't quite bring myself to do it, though. Firstly, because I'm not really sure what a parable is. And secondly, because if the veil is too thin, someone might guess which financial institution I'm riffing on. Since I'm still a shareholder, it's not really in my best interest to inadvertently contribute to the death spiral.

So there is no parable about shenanigans at a large, disorganized financial institution.  Instead, I started a novel - a work of fiction - that is meant to be funny, ironic, sarcastic, about a young woman who's been cast adrift for most of her life... And although it  might incorporate some fictional-ish shenanigans (write what you know!), that won't be the primary focus of it.


When I started the novel in some earnest a while ago, my young teenage son said skeptically "But that's not a real job".  Which was true.  (And which also reminded me that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree)


Yet I created this daydream, where I imagined a lovely little writing shack up at the back of the yard, where I'd go every morning, make some tea and write, write, write, while I looked southwestward towards the Georgia Straight and Vancouver Island, waaaaay off in the distance.

But who would read my written words?  Probably not my son (maybe if I SnapChatted it?).  Probably not my daughter either (unless I added photos and tagged her in every one?)

More importantly, who would pay for those words?  I'm sure it's difficult enough for the really great Canadian writers to make a living from their words. And I'm certainly no Miriam Toews or Ann-Marie MacDonald. Sigh.

So I knew there were hurdles. But hurdles that I was willing to fight against.  Until I realized the biggest hurdle that would shoot my daydream down in flames...

Ummm, I'm not really a tea person.

So, I'm asking... would bourbon do?

SQUIRREL!

My dog likes to chase squirrels.  Not a great revelation, I guess, since most dogs like to chase squirrels.  But even though this is not unique to my dog, and even though it happens every time we go into the woods, it still seems fresh and funny and makes me laugh. Every. Single. Time.

I marvel at a few things every time:

• First, that my Super-Chill Epsilon Dog who's has been trotting calmly at my heels suddenly becomes thrashing, crashing, tree-chewing Wild Maniac Alpha Dog.
• Second, that once he's got the whiff and has been distracted, it takes quite a while before he can refocus and get back to being Super-Chill Epsilon Dog again. 
• Third, I'm reminded that the phrase 'barking up the wrong tree' isn't just a euphemism... For my dog, it's a regular occurrence. 

And yes, that's my voice in the background, encouraging him to 'get it'.  But before you get all PETA on me, I know there isn't a chance in hell my dog will ever actually 'get it'. The squirrels are fast and cunning; my dog, not so much.

Of course, he's hopeful... 

In one of our nearby wooded patches, there is a large swath of forest that is kept safe behind a pointy wire fence.  This is our local watershed, so nothing domesticated is allowed in... No dogs. No people. 

But the squirrels are another story.  Lots of squirrels in there.  Kept safe behind the pointy wire fence.  Oh so bold behind the pointy wire fence. They chatter and scold as we walk along the trail beside the fence.  

So every single time, my dog stops at the fence and looks imploringly at me to let him in. Like this: 

I'm convinced that he's convinced that the squirrels on the other side of that fence are going to be much plumper and much, much slower than the ones on his side of the fence; that his squirrel-chasing would be much, much easier if he could only get to the other side of that fence; that he'd catch the 'big one' and then he could give up the chase altogether.

But that's why he's a dog and we're humans.  Yes, sure, we're thrashing around and losing our focus and barking up the wrong tree on a daily basis too.  And yes, sure, we sometimes look across the fence and are convinced that's where everything would be much, much easier for us. 

BUT most days we also realize that the squirrels on the other side of the fence are just as fast and just as hard to catch.  AND (thankfully) most days we also realize that it's not the catching that's important, it's the thrill of the chase that's the best part.  

Final gratuitous picture of the dog, contemplating squirrels in trees

On the Vine

I absolutely love home-grown tomatoes - they have a pungent. slightly rot-y smell (but pleasant all the same) and a rich earthiness to their taste, like they've been sprayed with a superfine mist of loamy dirt. Even the tastiest ones from a store are no match for home-grown, as they are missing those extra sensory pleasures.

It has been about 7 or 8 years since I'd last had tomato plants, which I remember as being a great success. There had been bushels and bushels of plump, bright cherry tomatoes, which had amply supported my caprese salad obsession that summer.

Aromatic goodness in a perfectly formed globe.

I was keen to repeat that success and had vivid dreams (both waking and asleep) in which pert tomatoes, creamy fresh mozzarella and succulent basil leaves frolicked in a kiddie pool of EVOO and balsamic.

They were calling out to me, beckoning me to plant, grow, create and consume.

So six months ago, I bought a few packets of tomato seeds and a seed starter kit.  The kit consisted of cute little peat moss pods in a tray with a clear plastic cover.  Kind of like an incubator for plants.

I placed 100+ seeds in the pods, then very carefully watered and tended them.   When the little shoots sprang up, I thinned those, put them in little pots and made them more hardy before subjecting them to the cruel outdoors.  (Not so cruel this year - it's been a spectacular summer!)  

They grew.  They grew some more.  And then some more.  They all had to be re-potted in much bigger pots (with thanks to my daughter and her NY friends.)  And they just kept growing.

EXCEPT they didn't seem to want to grow actual tomatoes.

Turns out they weren't beckoning me in those dreams - they were taunting me.

My plants were enormous (evidence here):

My crop, not so much... Herewith my harvest to date (these ones are supposed to be orange... I think):

Yet tonight I had a fabulous caprese salad for dinner.  With home-grown tomatoes that were pungent and misty/dirty and cheerfully red and absolutely perfect! 

No, no - of course they weren't mine.

Our friends (of > 30 years - can you believe that? How old are we?!) came over last week and brought a lovely little gossamer bag of the fruits of their tomato plant labours. So fine. So tasty.

AND she told me her secret.  No, it's not the potting soil, the type of tomato, or the position in the sun.

Turns out that Costco is the secret. It's where to go to buy thriving, strong tomato plants that will produce tons of tomatoes without even trying.

So next year, I'll be first in line at Costco to buy some plants. And maybe I'll use my special plant incubator to grow some sort of cash crop instead.  You know, like kale, or quinoa, or something else that would sell well on the West Coast...

And this year?  Well, I trimmed my plants back to just the stalks with fruit on them (all very green and hard, of course) in hopes that I can get them to stop growing taller and focus on the fruit!

AND I'm withholding water until they show me some love.

Even 2 or 3 more edible tomatoes and I could at least make a sandwich.