The making of the memories

CHERRIL DOTY

“It’s morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it. And

again it is spring.”

-- Mary Oliver

“All who wander are not lost.”

-- William Shakespeare

A symphony of the senses seems to greet me each day. Often, this

“music” -- or maybe it is my Muse -- takes me down strange cluttered

paths of memory.

Morning brings birdsong in abundance at this time of year. The

voices of finches and mockingbirds and doves and crows, along with

the rare oriole, the blue jay, the occasional screech of a hawk all

braided together into a long cord of sound.

The doves call, “Where are you, you, you.” My mind answers, “I am

here, here, here.” But am I? Am I here or adrift on a black and

dreamy sea of memory that stretches out before me as I watch swirls

and eddies texturing the dark sea?

Some of us are more nostalgic than others, I suppose, but I think

there is some need for looking back in each of us. Part of the

richness of life comes from sweet or bittersweet familiarity that

often inexorably draws us back into our past. For just a brief moment

of time we can get to be four years old or 14 and again be that

someone special in someone’s life -- the favored grandchild or the

first love.

Smell? Taste? Sound? Time? Place? What cues spark the memories,

thrusting us into the past? That crow loudly cawing his morning news

takes me back through a long litany of memories this morning. It

might be a song or a smell that could do the same. A taste in my

mouth could fling me into a memory of another time. Our lives are

such intricately woven symphonies of the mingling of senses and

memories of our past.

Recently, I found myself taking a quick side trip to Redlands on

my way to the desert. Some one -- or several -- of my senses had been

cuing up this trip for a few days. Maybe the orange blossom-smell of

pittosporum or the cawing of crows. Maybe the chirruping crickets

outside in the night or just some sense of longing for the past or

connection with someone special.

Thumbs beating out the rhythm of the music in my head on the

steering wheel, I drove past the hospital, past the old Victorians

set in the midst of deep orange groves. In memory, I could feel the

rising joy I always felt on approaching the house overlooking the

canyon -- my grandmother’s house. Even today, smells of dry dust,

orange blossoms, crushed eucalyptus leaves, or white gardenias evoke

this same joy. As I drove by where the house used to be, though a

lump of sorrow came up in my throat at the changes, I was warmed by

brief bits of memory lingering there:

There is where the house used to sit looking into the northern

distance. “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me ...

” My grandmother’s flute-like voice sang the words, her body swaying

to the music, eyes looking far off somewhere, as she played. And

there I sat beside her, my feet dangling over the edge of the rich

tapestry-cushioned piano bench.

Blackberry bushes grew thick and prickly right there at the edge

of that ravine. Popping berries into my mouth, one at a time, I

licked the sweet tart juice from my purple-stained fingers, savoring

the taste just a little bit longer.

The raucous call of crows as I slowed my driving pace to a near

stop conjured moments in the dry, dusty grove as I poked my thumb

into an orange and peeled it. The juice would run down the inside of

my arm as I separated the sections, my mouth filling in anticipation.

Evenings in front of the black and white television, my

grandmother sipped a highball while watching Spade Cooley, Lawrence

Welk or “I Love Lucy.” Smoke from her cigarette in the sand-weighted

velvet ash tray curled up into the lamp between two easy chairs.

Every day we make new memories. Like the cord made of the braided

sounds of morning’s birds, life and art -- the present, past and

future of it -- intertwine and form the one great journey each of us

is on that we call a life. The flood of events, large and small, does

not always make itself clear in the moment, yet will over time become

part of the larger tapestry.

* CHERRIL DOTY is a creative living coach, writer, artist, and

walker who lives and works in Laguna Beach. To schedule a coaching

session or to comment, contact her by e-mail at [email protected] or

by phone at (949) 251-3993.