Amnesia

Amnesia

“A deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease.”

That’s the top definition in a quick google search. Google isn’t a heart. Google isn’t a mind. Google isn’t always right either. It’s funny how sometimes science, full of discovery, possibility and pathways can make people’s medical journeys sound positively one sided, derogatory and flat.

The brain is anything but dull. Forgetting is part of a healthy mind in most cases. Sometimes we forget because of a broader change to the brain or because remembering becomes difficult in the face of pain. Do you know what? Even people who have wiped away memories for one reason or another may be opening neural pathways in another way. They may remember again too, further back or be remembering in a subconscious zone that will later meet a fuller understanding. It’s always important to remember that the remembering or the forgetting does not change one’s capacity to be remembered and seen with dignity and a spirit awaiting further potential.

I remember an assignment I was set many many years ago now. We had to write a children’s book. I wrote a book  “The Ticklemonsters” about a town that had forgotten how to remember what love was or what laughing was about. It was based on the memory of tickling a playmate of mine under the chin who was too sad to speak, though that playmate had not forgotten how. People wrote beautiful stories, though the lecturer at the time forgot to remember how challenging a place we were at to make something to share out loud and was a bit harsh in her critique of most people. One particular young man wrote a story about forgetting but remembering even in the forgetting . I recall that, though the girl had forgotten, as she saw reminders of the boy she was happy and so he knew she was in fact remembering him on a deeper subconscious level. He was a very smart young man. I made a point to speak with him to say that it was one of the most beautiful stories I’d ever heard  and that he should think about getting it published to which he replied,

“I don’t want to get it published. I just want the girl I was writing about to remember the boy.” He was very emotional and we ended up chatting over a coffee.

From that moment I started to remember very slowly some of the hidden memories that had left my conscious self. It was a slow journey and I won’t draw out all of the details, accept to offer this little poem called Amnesia:

What’s that.

What’s it mean to forget?

It happened to her once, then twice and three times over.

But love’s too big to forget forever.

Pain’s to wide and deep to stay hidden.

A puzzle is asking for an answer

Some people must be unforgettable

For the right reasons

Or the wrong reasons

Even after the nearest scrape with death

She was planting flowers in a coma

A bird of paradise down the garden path

Hibiscus in the Spring.

Violets in the clouds

Where peaceful doves

Protect sweet souls

A little boy who wouldn’t give up

A little girl who wouldn’t either

She would remember in time

Though too late for some

Who really loved

And who

Didn’t.

Amnesia

What’s that?

Don’t call her damage

Call her feeling

There’s a whole lot

Of feeling in forgetting

Or remembering

Like paintings with

Deeper stories

Or weaving with breath round the

Edges

Amnesia

Call her clay

That might not worry so

But reshape the best she can

A new today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYGjr7ZF6UU