Memoirous

One other memory, moment of transcendence—though I didn’t have the language to call it that—occurs to me. A time of mystery and innocence—and genuine enthrallment with the unseen, the unknowable, with the Holy. I was maybe four or five years old. At the Methodist church we attended in Kettering there was a spaghetti supper fundraiser. The whole family went. Afterwards in one of the side rooms was a craft sale. I begged my mother to buy me a bookmarker made out of felt shaped like a mitten that clipped onto the page. I kept that trinket on up through high school in a treasure box. Anyway, the fundraiser was a perfect time to explore the church outside of regular Sunday-service. Remarkably, it was just a regular building now empty of people, the pastor in his robes, the choir, the booming organ (no worship band with its fake rock and roll hipsters). I wandered into the sanctuary, lights out, dimmed, street lamps radiating in through the stained glass windows. There was a holy hush, the...

After reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, I’ve been contemplating moments of transcendence I’ve experienced. Many of these occurred while on my bike—or maybe it was simply being in the zone, a state of mind achieved by athletes, a process of chemicals in the body allowing the brain to detach, rest, while being physically active. I’ve also been in a zone while writing—able to get down pages and pages that seem like true art, until I reread them, mortified that nothing makes sense. Leaving me questioning the validity of these moments of transcendence. Are they actually delusions? Mini psychotic breaks? A vacating of my body and “normal” personality to adopt a persona, a person who takes risks and enjoys making a spectacle of herself. For instance, dancing. I’m oblivious to rhythm; I clap on the off-beat. Four/four time means nothing to me. It’s as if the gene for dance is missing from my DNA. Yet, I longed to move to music. In not too subtle ways I’ve been told I lack what ...

Susan Jordan, This American Life Radio and Memories Even on the radio I could tell: She was a nice person. I recently listened to the podcast This American Life where they re-aired a piece originally from 2001—the theme was A Return to Childhood, where Alex Blumberg went in search of his old babysitter, Susan Jordan, in “Ich... Bin... Ein... Mophead.” It was as much about how we remember and misremember than about how Alex eventually tracked down Susan using a private investigator. --That was 17 years ago. She must be about my age or a little younger. I could tell just by the sound of her voice that she was a nice person. It wasn’t said but I could tell as much: Alex had been secretly in love with his fearless babysitter. She was his champion. She would have beaten up a motorcyclist to defend her young charge, whom she felt a bit sorry for. Alex, she hesitated to mention, was a bit bookish and obsessed with stuff beyond his years. She was compelled to “play” wit...

TRUMPED So there was that—the time America participated in global diplomacy. I know I do a lot of railing on Trump at this blog which is supposed to be about memories and writing flash memoir. This might be because Trump triggers stuff inside of me, stuff I thought I’d taken care of, a past I’d squished down and hidden away in a drawer. For anyone who has lived with a mentally ill parent and survived all the uncertainty that comes with that experience might know what I mean. You have no control; you are at the whim of a capricious mother who might suddenly change her mind and throw your life into a whirlwind. In fact you learn not to trust. You build up walls in order to cope. Pretend you really didn’t want to go to camp anyway. Or you didn’t need the car after all. You can’t count on the adults around you. But a president— I guess I thought there were certain jobs where the person had to be in charge, knowledgeable, capable. Not crazy or perfidious. Machiavellian,...

I’ve blogged here before about Unique Thrift store. It has been part of my Chicago experience ever since I moved here in 1982. But, like a lot of things as we age, there are hard losses. Yesterday Unique Thrift closed its doors. The shop had recently undergone a brain-dead upgrade. I mean the whole reason people shopped there was to save money. Instead the new owners decided to make it into more of a boutique. Less choice and higher prices. Please tell me—is this good sense? In the thrift store market you need to overwhelm the customer with crap. So much of it that eventually you make money off of it. It used to be you could go into Unique on payday and come out with 3 – 4 grocery sacks of stuff and pay as little as $20. But that was a steady flow of money—until the upgrade. It was sad really, you’d go in and the aisles would be clear, the clothes arranged according to size (WTH!) not just color, and you could actually hear the musak. No more sloppy aisles with clot...