WHO KNOWS WHERE
Invisible strings of meaning
My mother traveled erratically through space and time, saw events and lost where they happened, remembered occasions but forgot who was there. No longer thriving on ideas, she wandered through feelings back to homes where she still belonged. She based her history on love. Her claims about the past became proverbs chanted back and forth, through a door left open. Things got rearranged and paint lost clarity. Manageable fragments surrounded her. She gathered them together, sat as though on a kindergarten chair to play "pretend."
On Sunday walks she lagged behind, reaching into trees, listening to birds. Moss, roots, ferns and rocks seemed familiar to her, though she could no longer name them.
Her mind played with dust bunnies, with jokes lacking punchlines. She was ready to exchange complex harmony for simple melody.
In some ways memory loss was a blessing, not a degradation. In her recollection, no one was ever late for dinner. At her table, she never got wrinkles or gray hair. Her simple menus, browned like old manuscripts, became elaborate, gourmet. The fruits of her life gave full sustenance in some minutes, shriveled in others. When she reached a place where old language and new imaginings confused her, she craved a bridge over the clattering landscape shifting underfoot. Foggy cognition fetched her up against ominous spike-topped fences, but she looked over them, saw buildings. Some were boarded up, but others held her parents and her children. Holidays emerged from creative daydreaming: a Fourth of July parade, Christmas trees, Easter baskets. No longer required to align a world, she enjoyed what it offered before going back inside. Invisible strings of meaning stayed with her. Significant events existed, stirred her up, bridged her fantasy present and her real past.
Mom adopted people who were not family. Nonplussed about where they came from, she searched them for clues to rebirth, as though they would furnish remaining pieces of her puzzle. With straight lines, curves and dots, she showed us where these strangers belonged. Her voice trickled over us with random generosity as she baked bread for newcomers, serving it up though its dough had not fully risen.
What was so long ago, reoccurred. Life, no longer a continuous work in progress, turned upside down and righted itself. Fragile, like a bird that mistakes windows for air, or competent as a woodpecker climbing trees upside down, she surprised herself by flying and landing without injury. In her sketchbook, she drew phoenixes for eternal life.
For years her memory had been like her neat file boxes, full of index cards of recipes, articles and thoughts worth keeping. Then her memory became a cave, lit with dim bulbs; she tried to crawl out the entrance but bright day overwhelmed what she stored inside. Like elastic, slowly stretching, the stories she collected within moved with her but threatened to snap back to a muffled place deep inside. Now, the tension eased, she discarded her worn-edged index cards and her mind opened her heart.
Mom's thoughts, like seeds colored in candy coating, rolled around, unsettled, soft-shelled, vulnerable. She had fun staining her face with sticky jellybeans. She looked around, up, down and who knows where, to learn soft strength and, like candy, how to melt.
—Jill G., Pawling, NY