Memoirous

Moss on the Garden Gate In shadows the gate stands open The grey wood weathered Upon closer inspection a fluorescent Green shines through One way or another the gate is returning To what it once was, decomposing The gate to the garden will one day Become a garden

I’d like to think of the M & M World store in New York City as a metaphor for the universe. Store really isn’t the right word. More like hedonism. I remember the first time we entered the emporium. We were on vacation with another couple and had landed in Times Square. You know the Naked Cowboy, people dressed up like Dora the Explorer imploring you to have your picture taken with them (for a price), commercials being shot, traffic, confusion, lights! Now imagine something more distracting than all this: yes, M & M World. A store dedicated to chocolate candy. How crazy can this be? You enter and are overwhelmed by the cathedral ceilings, church for the chocoholic. Two-stories connected by frenetic escalators. Everyone there seems to be jacked up on sugar. You are greeted by an energetic young M & M retailer and given a sack. Hopefully to fill up with M & M merchandise. It’s not just about the zot-size candies, but about purchasing cute canisters, mugs, M ...

It seems our memories get stored first in the hippocampus (short-term memory) and in the cortex (long-term memory). That’s right we make double memories, according to an article in the BBC . A team of US and Japanese scientists performed memory tasks on mice to discover that two parts of the brain are involved in creating memories. It’s as if we get two chances to get it right. Yet how do we continue to “mis-remember”? Certain shocks can intervene or short-circuit the hippocampus and we have to revert to the memories stored in the cortex. By the same measure the cortex can be compromised or damaged and we are left only with the immediate memories. The researchers also showed the long-term memory never matured if the connection between the hippocampus and the cortex was blocked. I was stopped by that word “mature.” Just like with cheese, a good memory ages or matures, which might explain why an immediate reaction might differ from one that has been allowed to sit. Af...

I love the work of Russell Freedman, who writes  for the YA audience non-fiction, historical essays using photographs as a foundation for his work. He has been awarded the Newbery Medal, three Newbery Honors, the Sibert Medal, and well the list goes on. In 2016 he published We Will Not Be Silent: The White Rose Student Resistance Movement that Defied Hitler . Basically it is the story of how the millennials of that time stood up to their government. Can you imagine? These were mostly middle-class, sheltered college students. The ones comedian Ck Louis claims cannot stop looking at their cell phones long enough to have a conversation. Brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl and young father of three Christoph Probst were initially arrested but then the dragnet fanned out and others were caught and convicted. Yet it is these three who are most easily identified with the movement. Certainly they paid with their lives. They put out altogether 5 or 6 pamphlets—...

In light of last week (Sean Spicer claiming Hitler had never gassed his own people) I had to take a few days to process this. I had to sort of what bothered me the most. But, first let’s look at what he said: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/us/politics/sean-spicer-hitler-gas-holocaust-center.html But first of all: This was an unforced error—he didn’t have to say anything. He was talking off the top of his head, comparing Assad to Hitler. All of this was Spicer’s attempt to defend Trump’s aggressive retaliation (59 or 60 missiles, the number I wasn’t able to nail down) on Shayrat Airfield because of an earlier chemical attack authorized by Assad. This is despicable. Saddam Hussein gassed his own people, Kurds. Poison gas was used in both WWI and WWII. From all appearances it appears to be a horrible way to die. Nevertheless, Sean Spicer sought to invoke a comparison to Hitler when discussing the US response. And here is where he got tripped up. I’m still not sure...

Ruminating this week on aspects of the biblical story: the first Easter. I’m always brought back to this feeling—the collapse of the whole world. How it must’ve felt for followers of Christ. A very public humiliating grotesque crucifixion, utter defeat, betrayal and broken promises. Probably how a millennial feminist must feel in post-election America right now. Pretty let down, much like giving up, wanting to turn your back. I’m no millennial, but the day after Trump was elected I couldn’t figure out how I was going to go on. Where was my place in a country that had elected the antithesis of Obama? And, as the days went on, and videos of people scourging Mexicans, Arabs, and the perceived “other” played out, I became more and more convinced that I was in the midst of an apocalypse. The first Easter is a story of losing hope and tenuously proceeding when we cannot see around the next corner. Miracle was even too big a word. Yet there it was unfolding. As a kid I always...

Sometimes the only purpose of a holiday is to remember. Of course there is the larger reason to gather people together or even the economical such as selling large amounts of (fill in the blank: candy, gifts, transportation, etc). Sometimes the economical far outweighs the purpose of remembering. Through the years especially holidays once attached to religion are losing track of this meaning. Nevertheless, memories continue to pile up. The Passover Seder is one clearly identified with memory. Jews come together to share a meal where each of the elements are meant to cause members to recall—the exodus or journey out of Egypt of the early Hebrews. During the Seder, Jews all over the world come together to eat, drink, and read the Haggadah, the ritual text that sets out the order of the night. This scripted occasion — not only the text but also the ritual foods and the glasses of wine to be consumed are prescribed. Josef Yerushalmi, an expert on memory and Judaism, poignantly calls...

Many of us are looking to write memories—either in the form of literary memoir or simply to record family history. This how-to book looks at memoir in small, bite-size pieces, helping the writer to isolate or freeze-frame a moment and then distill it onto paper. Flash is generally anywhere between 1,500 words to as few as 66 (I've seen 6-word memoirs!). Since I began exploring the genre I've had over 30 flashes published. Lately I've also been teaching Flash Memoir. so this how-to book is a summation of my process, the approach I take to flush out a flash. Even if you are only interested in flash, or only in memoir, or only in fiction--I believe there is something in this small book that you can take away. Order Freeze Frame: How To Write Flash Memoir TODAY! If everyone who visits my blog downloads a copy I will become a millionaire and I promise to flash about it.

Group Names for Birds: A Partial List A bevy of quail A bouquet of pheasants [when flushed] A brood of hens A building of rooks A cast of hawks [or falcons] A charm of finches A colony of penguins A company of parrots A congregation of plovers A cover of coots A covey of partridges [or grouse or ptarmigans] A deceit of lapwings A descent of woodpeckers A dissimulation of birds A dole of doves An exaltation of larks A fall of woodcocks A flight of swallows [or doves, goshawks, or cormorants] A gaggle of geese [wild or domesticated] A host of sparrows A kettle of hawks [riding a thermal] A murmuration of starlings A murder of crows A muster of storks A nye of pheasants [on the ground] An ostentation of peacocks A paddling of ducks [on the water] A parliament of owls A party of jays A peep of chickens A pitying of turtledoves A raft of ducks A rafter of turkeys A siege of herons A skein of geese [in flight] A sord of mallards A spring of teal A tidin...

When Fred was still alive I used to push him in his wheelchair to the park, just so he could touch the grass with his toes. He was over six feet tall and probably 120 pounds, skin and bones. I’d leave him under a tree and jog in wide loops circling back to check on him. One time a lady came up and offered him a sandwich, thinking he was homeless and hungry. Fred refused it; he was on a macro diet to rid him of cancer, the same cancer that eventually killed him. As spring approaches and I lace up to run at the park, I think of Fred. I miss orbiting around him.

I remember the first time I tasted Coca Cola. It was like liquid gold, measured as my sister and I split a bottle. The rule was whoever poured let the other one choose, that way no one got the upper hand, got more. It was the rare treat, maybe allowed once a week. My mother bought an 8-pack, the bottles redeemable the next time she groceried. No one touched Mom’s pop without asking. Of course she’d know if you’d snitched one; she kept track. Coke was on par with Mom’s nerve pills, the prescription she took to calm down and face life, or if not life then the daily chore of cooking and keeping house and raising four kids. It was a big deal to be granted one of Mom’s pop. A privilege. An invitation to a club. When it was gone, we’d have to wait until the next time she went to the super market. I think about this sometimes, like when I shop or see people loading the checkout with liters and cartons of pop. How it used to be the currency of love.

I used to recognize Europe Of course not every country was the same When I first went there were deutschmarks, francs, lire Bread was the common currency: we bought it everywhere And walked down the street eating it out of sacks like cotton candy All of the old stuff was new to me Together we discovered the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, a corner of a cathedral Where an organist practiced If hard-pressed I would have to admit That the grass there was the same green And the same sky But in my imagination if felt like different sunlight, Even the graffiti was different, more exotic Once there, I always longed to return Since I first visited there was a union, a coming Together of jigsaw countries, the map re-arranged The bread varied from place to place, but it was still incredible Language became the invisible border, separating Yet folks mostly understood each other We went over five or six times, never getting enough It became a solace for my s...