reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: memory


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chicken marsala monday

thismomentunique WITH EYES jpeg copy 2late yesterday afternoon, after a day spent working on computers and designs, with technology sluggishness taking over our souls, we headed to the woods to take a hike.  any time we feel tired or ‘stuck’ we walk.  around the ‘hood, along the lake, or to the starbucks about 2 and a half miles away.  any time we feel exuberant or elated we walk.  sometimes in the mountains (ahh!!) or in chicago or the third ward in milwaukee.  any time we need a ‘business meeting’ we walk.  mostly in the woods, in a county or state park.  walking and breathing in fresh air brings us back to the moment.  it re-centers us.

we hiked up the small rise in the woods, the light was waning and behind us the sky was deep deep orange.  in the clearing beyond the stand of trees stood, very still, a deer.  it was clearly the ‘lookout’ as way back in the field were six more deer, easy to count in the almost-dark as their white tails bobbed when the lookout gave the alert.  we stood perfectly still watching this beauty, a magic moment in the woods.  neither of us wanted to leave the spot.  i took a picture, not because you can see the deer in it, but because it preserved the moment for me.  i didn’t want to forget.  because, as you already know, i am thready like that.

around me, every rock or feather or piece of wood or ticket stub or scrap of notepaper carries with it a specific moment – preserved in time.  i could not necessarily tell the story of each of those moments – there are far too many for my synapse-challenged-brain to remember.  but i know that each one had meaning for me.  each one defined yet another piece of me, my relationship with someone i love, a time i shared with another being, a learning, a moment of sheer bliss, a moment of deep sadness.  each moment renewed me and brought me to my next moment of living.

as i have moved through life one thing has become certain.  that everything changes.  nothing stays the same.  life is in flux, always fluid.  what more do we have than each moment as it arrives for us?  i ask myself, “how do i want to spend this moment?  what do i want to feel about this moment?”  for i can never get it back.  i can never re-do it.  time has moved on.  and so i must keep moving.  i write about moments, i compose about moments, i tell stories about moments.  for me, those details count.   attempting to put succinctly (ha!) into words my philosophy-of-what-moments-mean is impossible; it is the umbrella that skies over everything else i believe, everything else i think.

when The Boy was little, he called the rearview mirror in cars the “review” mirror.  particularly poignant i think.  i have seen it written “don’t stare into the rearview mirror.  that’s not the direction you are going.”  instead i try (read: TRY) to review the past moments, learn from them, find grace in them, save the memory threads.  and wholeheartedly embrace the ones to come.  the moments.  unique.  in every way.   i love this chicken marsala image.

THIS MOMENT…UNIQUE…IN EVERY WAY MERCHANDISE

     ThisMomentUnique clock copy

ThisMomentUnique iphone case

ThisMomentUnique mug copy

CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY

melange button jpeg

check out DAVID’S thoughts on this CHICKEN MARSALA

this moment…unique…in every way ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

 


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ravioli in the moat.

easiestwaydownwith the grocery list in my hand, i stared at my husband. he looked back with a question in his eyes. he asked if i wanted to add something to the list. i continued to stare blankly and then said, “yes….umm…those square pasta things with stuff in them…..whaaaat are those called???” “ravioli?” he asked. “YES!!!! that’s it!! ravioli!!!”

menopause strikes again.

i told this story in the middle of directing a ukulele band rehearsal. suddenly similar tales were surfacing. jay talked about how she called kleenex “little blankets” not able to remember the word ‘kleenex’. sally said for the life of her she couldn’t remember the word for “those things you sit on at football games”….(that’s easy, you quip….bleachers!)

what is it about menopause??? or is it aging? i swear that there is a moat surrounding my actual brain and every so often things just fall into it. i am completely incapable of getting them out – at least for the moment. ask me at 3am and i will have no problem remembering what it is i forgot earlier in the day. ask me at 3am and i will list more things i am thinking about then i have thought about all week. these synapses aren’t firing as they used to….and yet there are some things i am really grateful for in this middle age. (no. hot flashes are not one of those things.)

it seems that prioritizing becomes a different animal at this age. it seems that you reach the point where you are not ‘striding’….instead, you are ‘strolling’….not really from a literal point of view, more of a figurative thing. even just ten years ago, there were things that were so much more important than they are now. i like this new time, this new age.hopscotch copy

even with the hot flashes, the seemingly overnight fluctuations in the size clothing i wear, the memory lapses, the i-have-to-be-goofy moments, photo-4the mushy-mushiness, the menopausal attention-deficit. i love when i am at rehearsal, surrounded by amazing women (and men too, but they have their own menopause and can’t have ours!), and i say “i’m hot!!!! are you hot???” and they all reply – in girls-who-have-your-back-tribal-fashion, “YES!!! we’re hot!!!”

and now i have to go make dinner. maybe we’ll have those square pasta things with stuff in them.growingoldisnotforwimps

 

 


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there if you look

photoi walked into the bathroom this morning and it greeted me. the scent of my sweet momma’s favorite perfume – estee lauder’s pleasures. it took me by surprise, making me stop suddenly. i stood still. i looked around, thinking maybe there was some other reason for this beautiful wafting ghost of perfume lingering in the air. i could see no other reason, no cause of any scent into which i might have meandered. so i stood there.

a few long seconds went by until i could speak and i stepped out of the bathroom to tell him that my momma’s perfume was in the air. he smiled and i could see he was moved. i went back into the bathroom slowly, wondering if i had imagined it. but as i entered the space again, it was there. most definitely – pleasures. the tears in my eyes weren’t tears of sadness. i spoke to her, telling her how much i missed her, how glad i was she had ‘stopped by’. i have been hoping that somehow she would show up, somehow she would make herself known to me, somehow she would let me know she was around.

so now i wonder – if this was her first wave from heaven. i imagine she’s been busy, her energy running high as she catches up with everyone she loves who got there before her. i imagine that she’s been talking up a storm, so to speak, and embracing all the opportunities she has to be with those she loves. so i am grateful for this moment today. this moment that – in an instant – made me feel like my momma is right here, just on the other side.

i talked to my sister during her lunch. i was sitting on the edge of the deck in unseasonable 65 degree sun and she was in her jeep at a favorite lunch spot. i told her about momma’s perfume. she said she had goosebumps. i told her, too, that the other day i found myself saying the words “betwixt and between”. now, who says that these days? we laughed when i said i was channeling mom. my sister said she had said something mom-esque a few days ago and i asked her if it was the word “irked”. again, we both laughed and we could both hear our sweet momma….

last night i woke in the middle of the night. i have no idea why or what woke me, but there was this one thought i was aware of as i made my way into awake-ness. the words – something like this – the more you have gratitude for every little thing, the more the universe gives you to have gratitude for. i woke him up. to talk about it. i’m not sure where the words came from but they were present in the air around me and my pillow. gratitude for every little thing – not just the good things. but also the challenging things. the things that make us weep. the feeling of being tired. the feeling of being exhilarated. with gratitude, the glass never has to be half-empty. it’s always half-full, waiting for the moment it spills over. our universe isn’t full of bubbles and rainbows, but they are there if you look.

my sweet momma’s perfume brought me a moment with my sweet momma. i look for the next time with great anticipation, wondering what this amazing woman will do to let me know she’s there. in the meanwhile, i am grateful for estee lauder’s pleasures in the air. a little thing? i don’t think so.

after working on projects, we played frisbee in the street. we never took a shower but wore sweats and sneakers. (we did brush our teeth.) we ate fresh strawberries and drank strong coffee.

we agreed it was a magic day.

www.kerrisherwood.com

itunes: kerri sherwood


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blindsided

photo-1 the other day we took a walk on the lake. we stopped at a low brick wall and sat down to watch the water and sky dance with each other. out on the horizon was a sailboat, its white sail billowing in the breeze. it made me think of a day i had spent on lake michigan sailing with friends. it was a really long time ago and i couldn’t remember the details. i don’t know if that can be blamed on a bad memory (remembering too many other details through the years), motherhood (remembering too many other people’s details through the years) or menopause (no explanation needed). but this is what it made me feel:

suddenly i realized that, with the loss now of both my sweet momma (the storer of many of my details) and my daddy (who valiantly tried to store as many of my details but could never compete with mom’s capacity to store such things), there was no one to ask.

i was instantly blindsided by the profound thought that if i can’t remember something, it’s now gone.

whoa.

doesn’t that just stop you in your tracks? it did me. big chunks of my life are now nebulous floating material if i can’t grasp the thin threads of those memories and bring their gossamer ribbons back into the forefront of my brain. incredible.

you know how photographs become memories in your mind’s eye? you remember an event or a person as a snapshot, often because you have seen a snapshot of that very event or person.

a snapshot. 1977. i remember.

a snapshot. 1977.
i remember.

all the tactile pieces of the moment, the visceral pieces, the emotional pieces are filed with that snapshot.

the path of your life is punctuated with vivace snapshots, hopefully so numerous that, were it a written symphony, there wouldn’t exist enough instruments to play it, nor would it be able to be performed as quickly as those memorysnapshots travel around in our heads and hearts, one dissolving into the next and the next and the next.

i remember one of the last times i sat in the rocking chair nursing one of my babies to sleep late one night. i distinctly thought to myself – “memorize this moment” – and i did just that….took a snapshot of the moment for my mind’s eye special box of memories and stored it away. i remember how the rocking chair felt, i remember the smell of soft baby in my arms, i remember humming, i remember the physical feeling of nursing, i remember the light and shadow in the room.

but how often do we remember to do this? to actively store away a moment before it fleetingly becomes The Past? we passively, and for good reason in our rushed lives, move from one moment to the next, checking things off the lists we hold. it’s like when you are behind a video camera on christmas morning. (now, i come from the age of VHS cameras and maybe the smaller 8mm size, not iphones on which you could easily record the glee of the holiday.) behind the camera i always felt removed from the moments, missing some of how it felt. sometimes, it is just easier to remember if you don’t have The Movie of it. easier. or better. or more complete. or more important.

i don’t know now what i will do to retrieve the memories that are confused or incomplete. who will i check in with now that the other rememberers are gone? how will i fill in the blanks in between the snapshots? how will i fill in the snapshots? is The Movie of my life now less complete because of the missing details i can’t quite get to? or is The Movie of my life more complete now because i am so aware of that which i can remember AND that which i can’t?


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swimming upstream

photo-4about a half hour before momma’s book-signing party, she taught david how to put on blush and lipstick.  she used her walker to get to her dresser and, ever so carefully, let go of it so that she might lean into the dresser.  with a free hand she carefully picked up her blusher and blush-brush and applied just a bit of to the apples of her cheeks, saying that “i was taught you have to smile when you put on blush.  that way it is applied to the right part of your cheek.”  she then carefully selected a lipstick and demonstrated step-by-step how to apply this lovely shade to her pink lips.  david asked her questions; i love that about him.  he engaged with momma at all moments, from the simplest to the most intensely profound.  i carefully tucked this memory away, guessing i would draw on it in the future.

a few minutes before momma’s book-signing party for Shayne, she asked if we had the sharpies she needed.  we did.  she had been practicing her signature for the signing, carefully forming each letter, wanting to “be unique”.  we watched as she practiced on paper with lines, on graph paper, on scrap paper, in a little blue notebook she kept in a basket in her assisted living facility apartment.  she pointed out that she wanted to use a “big B, little e and little a, a big K and a y without a tail.”  she carefully practiced signing this very special and very unique way to sign her name.  i carefully tucked this memory away, guessing i would draw on it in the future.

the night before momma fell she sent me a text message.  it was a screenshot of a saying she had seen:  “every so often your loved ones will open the door from heaven, and visit you in a dream.  just to say ‘hello’ and to remind you that they are still with you, just in a different way.”  i responded with how beautiful that was and carefully screenshotted her message so that i might tuck that memory away, guessing that i would draw on it in the future.  photo-5

that was the last text message i received from momma.

the future is now.

and i find myself swimming upstream. the loss of my sweet momma is huge.  we have always been so connected. i keep drawing on my memory bank of moments, on all the sweet momma-isms i can remember, all the times spent together.  i am trying to not let little things get in the way.  today i find myself spending the day nursing an unexpected back injury (well, that’s silly…what back injury is expected??)  perhaps we drove too many miles over the past weeks; perhaps stress and sadness have taken a bit of a toll on my resistance…i don’t know.  i’m trying to weigh in on that and not bite the temptation to get consumed by things i shouldn’t get upset about.  it all balances out in the end, yes?  i mean, what really matters?

so the upstream swim is punctuated with these downstream currents that threaten to pull me into parts of the river i don’t want to go.  and yet, it is all important…to feel all of it…not skip any of it.  when heidi and i were performing regularly for cancer survivor events we had this piece about a lazy river woven into our performance.  there are many places to get in and out of a lazy river at a waterpark; you can stop and get out and rest and then get back into it, in a new floating tube.  the lazy river carries you along; you don’t have to do anything.  no resistance needed.  no work.  there is an ease about it.  it’s actually harder to get out than to continue on your merry way.  but sometimes, you have to get out of the stream.  you have to step out and look at it.  you actually have to resist the currents.  you have to work.  it is not easy.  you have to look at it all and take with you all the stuff that matters, discarding what doesn’t.  you have to linger in the memories that you tucked away, so that you might celebrate and not be consumed by that which throws you off balance, that which doesn’t really matter. each of us is a riverstone, after all.  sometimes, swimming upstream is necessary.

oh….and, by the way, if you want to know how to put on lipstick or blush, let david know.  he can help you.