Some days ago I was walking through a gas station parking lot holding a bouquet of roses I’d just bought at Safeway. A couple filling up their car gave me one of those double-take long glances that makes you look down at yourself and wonder what caught their attention. Was it the roses? The camo hat? The knitted wrist warmers? The bear spray hanging from the waist? All of them together? I imagine I looked a little odd, walking seemingly nowhere in a place never meant for pedestrians.
It's the bear spray. (Rorshach test, all of us? I've never lived in a rural place like Montana).
I love hearing about memories like that, even when there is no deeper point being made. Both the memories, and musings on memory. It's endlessly fascinating. I think aside from the emotions and body component associated with a certain memory, there's often this additional overlay of nostalgia for anything going back more than a few years just by virtue of the fact that it's a part of our life already past and lost. Even if it's not a happy memory, I feel nostalgia simply because it's in the past. So this mixes in with the other visceral emotions, too.
You wondered what will stand out 17 years from now; if the present will turn out as interesting and magical as the distant past seems now. I have often wondered this too. What I do notice is that the episodic memories that survive beyond a few years are not necessarily the ones I might have predicted; rather they seem to be spaced out and cover enough of a variety of experiences to help me keep track of the whole, preserve a running narrative so I don't lose track of my life. It's less about any one memory, and more about how they all support and complement each other. That's my own hypothesis, anyway.
That's a little concerning about your reaction to the shot - might be worth checking some of the better blogs and resources online to see if similar stories are coming up. I'll mention if I hear anything.
I haven't felt like "myself" since my second vaccination a year and a half ago. I haven't gotten any of the boosters because of it. I haven't had Covid, either -- or at least had symptoms or tested positive, despite numerous close contact with infected, symptomatic people. Something's changed in me since the vaccinations, but I don't know what or even how to explain it. There's something so haunting about your imagery in this: the red roses, the Russians and the French. It's a timeless piece, punctuated by our weird time.
Ja, it's the roses. I always get weird looks (I'm a guy! It's not Valentine's Day!) when I buy roses at the grocery store, which is every week, but I think everyone has grown used to it by now.
Speaking as a Covid-experiencer (twice for sure + maybe two more!), it sounds sucky to get the booster (yes, I need to get it), but it beats 30 hours lying in bed for 30 hours going, 'Muh.' (Weirdly enough, I've never experienced the itchy skin. Also, apparently, my version of the brain fog is actually a light, annoying haze.)
The nasty part of this disease is that it just doesn't go away. The measles went away when I was a child, norovirus went away both times, the strep disappears, but this damn thing hangs on.
So beautiful Antonia! As I was reading, I kept thinking - "yes!" and "this!" and more just kept coming. Memory is a strange thing, even when it's working the way it's supposed to. I really like the concept of task-switching instead of multitasking. Makes so much more sense.
You are able to paint a scene in such a convincing way. Is it all an illusion? NO because your photographs reinforce how good your descriptions are. I spend time thinking how memories or their snippets are formed. Which ones remain. Which ones can be touched again by a different experience that somehow relates. This did all of those things.
One observation is how many demands there are on you yet you fight for the priority of the walk and all the gear it requires because you've made it a priority. Great.
But this in particular: "It was just peanut butter but it was missing and I had the time to wander and meander and let it make its own sweet way back to my mind and onto the list in my purse." Now THAT is a sentence.
There's a thing about my increasingly frayed memories that I'm starting to enjoy, though - the hugely unimportant ones, I mean. When I discover a physical record of an old memory I couldn't, until that moment, recall, it means I get to be surprised by it, all over again.
I'm sure all this will be regarded by future neuroplasticity augmentation surgeons as a bug rather than a feature, and we'll all end up with infallible 20/20 hindsight at some point, but - those times when you wish you could read your favourite book for the first time all over again? Maybe they should have a place in our future too. Recreational forgetting. A deliberate letting go, to feel the thrill of picking it up again. I find the idea attractive ( if also...rather alarming).
Sep 19, 2022·edited Sep 19, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik
I love that revelatory feeling when something outside of me – a sound, a smell, a step on a flagstone (more likely a graceless trip on a root or blade of grass) – evokes a memory of something I haven't thought of in years. I feel like it is a gift, or an Easter egg of sorts, that our brain shares with us on occasion.
That said, the other week I was expressing irritation with our modern world. One of the biggest reasons I ultimately ditched Facebook entirely however many years ago was the "on this day" stuff. I hated being bludgeoned by that damn feature, unsuccessfully try as I might to disable it, hide it, whatever, because it was always something I didn't necessarily WANT to be reminded of. Our own memory triggers aren't so different, but for some reason the process felt different. I was reminded again sitting in a movie theater and seeing all these references to old movies, being reminded that Ghostbusters came out 7000 years ago and again for some reason it irked me.
What's wrong with our own Biological Analog Recurring Memory System? I don't want these lurking technological powers to be gaming my brain with their own little jolts of "remember when." It just feels like another example to me of a way our technology exceeds our capacity to handle what it's ramming down our consciousness.
*shakes fist at sky, scowls left to right in search of interlopers leaving footprints among the leaves beginning to spread across my lawn*
What a lovely picture you've made here of your perambulations around Moscow, though. It makes me wish I had a gold tooth to complement my jenky grill. I'd have smiled at you too, only I'd have given you the flowers, or one of them at least. Surly old cold-defying men like me and that Russian fellow rarely earn unexpected smiles from bustling university students and that random kindness you showed surely deserved its own reward.
Even as I type these words I hear a distant train and I am thinking about falling snow. *sigh*
Beautiful essay. Brain fog is a worry of mine, but more for its association with aging. I just recently turned 64, which reminded me of the Beatle's "When I'm 64" line. I haven't had COVID, and wonder when, not if, I will get it. More worried for my daughter who also has been spared the disease, remarkably. Maybe some forest bathing is just what the doctor has ordered.
It's the bear spray. (Rorshach test, all of us? I've never lived in a rural place like Montana).
I love hearing about memories like that, even when there is no deeper point being made. Both the memories, and musings on memory. It's endlessly fascinating. I think aside from the emotions and body component associated with a certain memory, there's often this additional overlay of nostalgia for anything going back more than a few years just by virtue of the fact that it's a part of our life already past and lost. Even if it's not a happy memory, I feel nostalgia simply because it's in the past. So this mixes in with the other visceral emotions, too.
You wondered what will stand out 17 years from now; if the present will turn out as interesting and magical as the distant past seems now. I have often wondered this too. What I do notice is that the episodic memories that survive beyond a few years are not necessarily the ones I might have predicted; rather they seem to be spaced out and cover enough of a variety of experiences to help me keep track of the whole, preserve a running narrative so I don't lose track of my life. It's less about any one memory, and more about how they all support and complement each other. That's my own hypothesis, anyway.
That's a little concerning about your reaction to the shot - might be worth checking some of the better blogs and resources online to see if similar stories are coming up. I'll mention if I hear anything.
I haven't felt like "myself" since my second vaccination a year and a half ago. I haven't gotten any of the boosters because of it. I haven't had Covid, either -- or at least had symptoms or tested positive, despite numerous close contact with infected, symptomatic people. Something's changed in me since the vaccinations, but I don't know what or even how to explain it. There's something so haunting about your imagery in this: the red roses, the Russians and the French. It's a timeless piece, punctuated by our weird time.
Ja, it's the roses. I always get weird looks (I'm a guy! It's not Valentine's Day!) when I buy roses at the grocery store, which is every week, but I think everyone has grown used to it by now.
Speaking as a Covid-experiencer (twice for sure + maybe two more!), it sounds sucky to get the booster (yes, I need to get it), but it beats 30 hours lying in bed for 30 hours going, 'Muh.' (Weirdly enough, I've never experienced the itchy skin. Also, apparently, my version of the brain fog is actually a light, annoying haze.)
The nasty part of this disease is that it just doesn't go away. The measles went away when I was a child, norovirus went away both times, the strep disappears, but this damn thing hangs on.
elm
it's the BIG FUN pandemic!
Okay, I'm in the barn, so WHY am I in the barn?
Might as well give one of the cats a belly rub while the tape rewinds.
What a cool story! And I have several friends who have told me they have similar brain fog even months after Covid.
So beautiful Antonia! As I was reading, I kept thinking - "yes!" and "this!" and more just kept coming. Memory is a strange thing, even when it's working the way it's supposed to. I really like the concept of task-switching instead of multitasking. Makes so much more sense.
You are able to paint a scene in such a convincing way. Is it all an illusion? NO because your photographs reinforce how good your descriptions are. I spend time thinking how memories or their snippets are formed. Which ones remain. Which ones can be touched again by a different experience that somehow relates. This did all of those things.
One observation is how many demands there are on you yet you fight for the priority of the walk and all the gear it requires because you've made it a priority. Great.
This is all so gorgeous.
But this in particular: "It was just peanut butter but it was missing and I had the time to wander and meander and let it make its own sweet way back to my mind and onto the list in my purse." Now THAT is a sentence.
There's a thing about my increasingly frayed memories that I'm starting to enjoy, though - the hugely unimportant ones, I mean. When I discover a physical record of an old memory I couldn't, until that moment, recall, it means I get to be surprised by it, all over again.
I'm sure all this will be regarded by future neuroplasticity augmentation surgeons as a bug rather than a feature, and we'll all end up with infallible 20/20 hindsight at some point, but - those times when you wish you could read your favourite book for the first time all over again? Maybe they should have a place in our future too. Recreational forgetting. A deliberate letting go, to feel the thrill of picking it up again. I find the idea attractive ( if also...rather alarming).
The magic is in the unknown? Switch-tasking-what a great term- is all know, know, know. No room for imagination there.
Beautiful piece.
I love that revelatory feeling when something outside of me – a sound, a smell, a step on a flagstone (more likely a graceless trip on a root or blade of grass) – evokes a memory of something I haven't thought of in years. I feel like it is a gift, or an Easter egg of sorts, that our brain shares with us on occasion.
That said, the other week I was expressing irritation with our modern world. One of the biggest reasons I ultimately ditched Facebook entirely however many years ago was the "on this day" stuff. I hated being bludgeoned by that damn feature, unsuccessfully try as I might to disable it, hide it, whatever, because it was always something I didn't necessarily WANT to be reminded of. Our own memory triggers aren't so different, but for some reason the process felt different. I was reminded again sitting in a movie theater and seeing all these references to old movies, being reminded that Ghostbusters came out 7000 years ago and again for some reason it irked me.
What's wrong with our own Biological Analog Recurring Memory System? I don't want these lurking technological powers to be gaming my brain with their own little jolts of "remember when." It just feels like another example to me of a way our technology exceeds our capacity to handle what it's ramming down our consciousness.
*shakes fist at sky, scowls left to right in search of interlopers leaving footprints among the leaves beginning to spread across my lawn*
What a lovely picture you've made here of your perambulations around Moscow, though. It makes me wish I had a gold tooth to complement my jenky grill. I'd have smiled at you too, only I'd have given you the flowers, or one of them at least. Surly old cold-defying men like me and that Russian fellow rarely earn unexpected smiles from bustling university students and that random kindness you showed surely deserved its own reward.
Even as I type these words I hear a distant train and I am thinking about falling snow. *sigh*
Beautiful essay. Brain fog is a worry of mine, but more for its association with aging. I just recently turned 64, which reminded me of the Beatle's "When I'm 64" line. I haven't had COVID, and wonder when, not if, I will get it. More worried for my daughter who also has been spared the disease, remarkably. Maybe some forest bathing is just what the doctor has ordered.