Unremembered memories

Do you remember? How well do you remember, and how much? Do you remember by image? Sound? Smell? How it felt? And how you felt about it? Or words, do you remember only words?



For instance:
When I was a little girl, my family vacationed each summer at Lake Winnipesaukee. We rented a cabin right on the lake. It was painted white with a porch running the length of the lake side. Surrounding the cabin were birch trees, and stubby grass, with a pull up next to the cabin for our car. The beach was narrow, of soft white sand and we had a pier jutting out into the lake with a rowboat.
A good description, isn't it? And how much do I actually remember? Only the detail of the scrubby grass, which was unpleasant under my little bare feet. The rest all came from my father's home movies. What I remember is watching those movies, over and over, throughout my childhood.



We have a lot of family documentation. Movies, scrapbooks, my father's appoinment journal, my girlhood diaries.
Thus I am able to document that my father took me to the opera in New York when I was 16. It is in his appointment book, and in my diary. We went to see "Il Trovatore" and it was the only time I ever saw that opera.
When I think of "Il Trovatore" I think of the noise the singers made moving around the stage, thumping and scraping and banging. And that, I think, is a valid memory. Of the stage, the box we sat in, the train ride in and out, what I wore -- nothing! Just the thumping and scraping and bumping.



I talk of movies, I talk of music and both are powerful triggers to my memory. When I married, my father gave me a regular 8 movie camera and I made movies (later, video) for most of my life. I would edit them into 20 minute reels, and select classical LPs to play along with them. I carefully selected which LP was to be played with each reel. Later, when films were striped in order to marry the sound to the image, I edited the music to accompany the images. A favorite reel was footage taken at the World's Fair of '64. The accompanying music was Khatchatorian's Masquerade Suite. I omitted one movement, the better to match sound and image. Today, when I hear the Masquerade Suite, I see that movie flicker in my mind's eye. Until we come to the section I didn't use. The images pick back up when we come to the end of that movement.

So many rites of passage, stages of development, that should have been remembered, but are not.

My first foray into the adult world of opera attendance: not remembered!

Remembered: Our son's birth was a momentous event and one that I can bring into my mind any time, as vivid as the day it happened (Mar. 23, 1958). We were living in Roxbury that year, a seedy neighborhood of Boston. Our 16 unit apartment building housed some elderly residents who had been there forever, and a number of welfare mothers. These women became my friends . We shopped, we aired our babies in the park together and most importantly, had coffee together every morning in one kitchen or another.
When my labor began -- and I was not even sure it was labor -- I went to one of my friends and she timed the episodes. Larry was on guard duty at the post that night, so she called the police to take me to the hospital. The officer assumed I was one of the welfare mothers, and when we arrived at the hospital the registration clerk assumed he was my husband! I was hustled into an examination room and then moved directly into an operating room. No time for prep, no time for anesthesia.
20 minutes later, Mark was born. There was no pain involved, he just slipped out like a little cake of soap. In my nearsighted condition I only saw bright lights and pink and heard a cry and then the doctor's face blocked my view and he said, "we're going to put you out for a few minutes while we do some repair" and then I was waking and a nurse put a small bundle in my arms.
My first view of my son! His eyes were squeezed shut so hard you could not see the lashes. I gazed on his little nose, philtrum, and lips. So small, and perfectly molded. And tucked out from inside his swaddling blanket, one small hand, the fingers curled as if to scratch his beautiful cheek.
I was overwhelmed with love for this little creature. I vowed I would care for him and protect him forever. They talk about mother-child bonding. In my case it was instantaneous, from the moment I first set eyes on him.

But the point of this whole essay is to describe an event of great importance to my life and development, an event undocumented, undescribed, unremembered,


The first thing we did, after our move to Pittsburgh in 1967, was to join a Unitarian Fellowship. We were all afloat in this exploration of "Life's Big Questions" together. We had experts from the University come to speak to us. We had growth groups. We had study groups.
One of the groups studied Zen Buddhism. We were led by a man who belonged to an Ashram in Cleveland. Though we could not follow in his path exactly, he urged us to at least learn how to meditate, and to do it daily.
I signed on with the Transcendental Meditation group in Squirrel Hill. I paid $125 - no small amount to be removed from my housekeeping money - and was given a mantra and tutored in the technique.
I set up a quiet corner in the back hallway of our home, and began meditating once a day. I did this for nearly 2 years. I did not receive any great insights or awakenings from the practice, but I was more relaxed, cheerful, optimistic.


By the early 70s we had acquired some property with another family that we used as a summer place. Every weekend we trekked up there with our son and dog and were joined by the other family, and always one or two other families from the fellowship. We camped out in the farmhouse, ate communal meals, told stories around the campfire. But something was missing. Amidst all that noise, slamming screen doors and bustling people, I simply could not meditate.
I decided that, since I could not find a quiet spot in the farmhouse, I would make one somewhere else. There was a 10 acre pine woods along one edge of our property. It had been planted by former owners, with plans to cut Christmas trees from that lot. That plan never saw fuition, and the pine woods was overcrowded and overgrown. The lower branches of the 15 ft. trees had all died back and made moving through this woods difficult. I decided that I would cut off all these dead branches and make a clearing, a good place to practice my meditation.
And so early one afternoon I made my way into the pine woods, bow saw in hand. I picked an area with soft pine needs covering the ground and no poison ivy, no undergrowth, and started cutting. It was mindless work, a rote task. Rhythmically I would grab a branch, saw through it and throw it aside. Grab the next branch, saw through it and throw it aside. I lost track of time. It seemed that I had just started when the light faded, and branches littered the ground. My meditation space was cleared.

But I left the woods a very different person than the one who had gone in. I was filled with elation, with joy. I had been given a message, a message of knowing, a message without words. The knowledge that I was connected with the earth, was part of it, was made of the same stuff as the trees and the branches I had trimmed, and the birds, with it all.
It was strong and heady stuff. Like the tumblers in a lock sliding into position and opening. I loved all I saw, and was loved in return. I knew I belonged.

This was not a normal occurrence. What had happened? Had I put myself into some sort of trance? Then where had this message come from? I had to think it through.
My first decision was to say nothing to my friends. I could not defend my experience, I was too confused. And then, not saying anything immediately made it impossible to say anything later on.
In the days that followed I made another decision. I could either continue my meditations, leaving myself open to another similar experience. Or I could put it all aside, and continue in my role as wife and mother.
I put it all aside. Life continued as before.

But like the dark star that is determined only by its pull on its brighter twin, the effects of my experience began to show in my work. I had been working on a film. The structure was in place: 28 small films, each demonstrating a different filmic technique. But now, it began to be the means by which I would explain my experience. As I worked on the film I began to write poetry. It poured out of me, fully formed. Throughout that fall and winter, I was in an extreme creative space,

And doors opened. I was offered a job that had great opportunity for growth and advancement, and I took it. It became a career that I loved, and lasted 23 years.

If I believed in the supernatural, I might have said that the supernatural was responsible for all this good luck, this feeling that I was being watched over. But I do not believe in the supernatural.

There is a sad ending to this story. My poetry dried up as quickly as it came. The film is murky and obscure, not a good film. And my wonderful job took all of my attention. The old doors closed behind as I ventured into new worlds. I forgot the old.

Today, I look back and ask myself if it really happened. I do not know. I don't remember.

He said, "I have climbed the mountain and it was solid, all rock and cliff and clay. When I reached the top, all became transparent, I knew we were just a projection on this astral plain. But when I came down from the mountain, the rocks became rocks and the cliff, cliff, and the clay, clay.