👟👠 Do you remember? (#12)

Hi !  Welcome back. This week I am thinking (and writing) about memories, doughnuts, staircases to heaven and Bridgerton 😃  If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can join here or by clicking the button below. - Eve D.❣️

WEEK IN REVIEW

⛱️ Another short week with a public holiday, and lots and lots of soccer. I also worked so much this week, and it felt like my head was going to explode with all the info I had to parse through. But not only am I loving what I am doing (more on that soon) but I am also very good at balancing life/work lately, and I must say - it’s definitely a skill worth acquiring! The days are still flying by too fast, so I have set a challenge to myself to meet up with at least two people every week, one on one, socially, so I can slow it down a bit. Nothing like a good cup of coffee with a friend, or - even better - a good meal. Hope you had a good week too, and are planning a relaxing weekend.

FREE THERAPY

LIKE A GOLDFISH

Memories made and lost

I have a pretty good, somewhat photographic memory for non personal facts. Back in the day, when History tests were nothing more than just regurgitation of textbook to paper, I could easily get 95% for an exam. But I have a pretty shocking "autobiographical memory". I have snippets of memories from my childhood, and a good understanding of the overall sentiment of my youth, but I am scarce on the details.

My sister, on the other hand, is like a walking encyclopaedia of our childhood. Example: I will have a vague recollection of moving into our childhood home, but she will tell me exactly what year it happened, who her school teacher was, where my dad had his primary office, what car we drove and how many dogs we had at that time. This is extremely useful, because I simply offload the burden of my life story on her, and whenever I need details, I just ask her.

Until this week, I was convinced that my lack of childhood memory was a survival technique, a form of dealing with PTSD trauma. I didn't have a horrendous childhood by any means, but it wasn't a walk in the park either. So, I figured, maybe there were things that I just choose to forget. Now I know better.

Katy Schneider, writing for The Cut, describes this exact memory experience, also referencing her sister as her primary holder of memories. Katy says she has about 50 distinct memories from her past, but that's it. She names us "Forgetters" and our sisters "Rememberers". She did some proper, scientific research, which included speaking to memory experts. In the absence of a medical condition (which I am pretty sure I do not have), the sporadic memory is unlikely to be linked to trauma.

Researchers who study SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory) say there is nothing wrong with people like me - our first person perspective just leaves our grasp quicker. On the other side of the spectrum is HSAM (highly superior autobiographical memory) which is where people don't really forget anything, down to the last mundane details of their past. My sister and I are not extreme on either end, and we both fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, each closer to her "side".

Unsurprising, people with HSAM are more miserable. They struggle to let go, hold onto grudges. They ruminate over negative things, and are obsessive. SDAM people are better at thinking conceptually, and move easier through life. I know I am probably much better off for being a forgetter than a rememberer. There are whole decades of my life that I have spent with a person or in a circumstance that I can today literally only reduce to a shrug and a "it didn't work out". (Even though I have vague recollections of the actual storyline being filled with enough drama to make a blockbuster movie). I bet if I asked my sister she could fill in the details, but why bother?

My one deep, deep regret about not being a rememberer involves my beloved uncle. Once, when he visited us in South Africa, he took me out to lunch and told me stories. And I mean, stories! About my parents, his parents, the family. The dirt was spilled! 😀 I remember being gobsmacked. Today, probably 20 years later, I remember the lunch, I remember the restaurant and where we sat....but I remember almost no details of the conversation 😢 . I think I consciously blocked it out, but I still kick myself about not writing down the details. Too late now. All the elders of the family have passed on.

Just to be clear, I don't live with no memories. There are very specific and clear memories that I consider a strong part of my personal story, but after reading Katy's article I realised that they are the same stories, over and over again. The rest are still there, but they are buried deep, deep down inside. Then, once in a while, something happens in today-life that jolts some long forgotten episode awake. That's what happened yesterday, in a story I'll tell you next.

NEW OLD MEMORIES

Lost and Found

Let me illustrate how strangely memory can work, at least for me.

Zac has been self-learning this 3D program called Blender that is used by Pixar to design animations. (I have no idea what drew him to this, but who am I to question his life choices?). As part of the tutorial to get started there is an 11-hour self paced video series that teaches you how to draw doughnuts on a plate, using vectors. So he has been busy working on this for the past few weeks, and keeps on showing me his daily progress. The latest version (about half way done, apparently) looks like this. So that’s memory jolt number one. 

Then this week, my sister decided to make bigos, which a traditional Polish stew. We haven't had it since my mom passed away, and it's a complex dish so it was a real treat for me and the kids. We went over last night to watch the Polish-Austria Euro game, and to eat the bigos. As she placed the dish on the table, she said "There'll still be a bay leaf in there, possibly, so just look out for it". Then, a short while later, Micole then found the bay leaf in her dish and said "Found the bay leaf! Do I get a prize?". Memory jolt number two. 

Memory jolts one and two resulted in a new "old memory": I was about 9 years old, and my family was living in our first house in South Africa, which we had temporarily rented while looking for a more permanent home. My father decided to make traditional Polish doughnuts (they are balls, not rings, and usually filled with jam). As a lark, he said he would put a tiny ball of aluminium foil into one doughnut, and the person who finds it would win money from him. I was determined to be that person, and ate probably 15 doughnuts before I finally won! I was ecstatic. Much, much later in life my dad and I were talking about this, and he told me that he found the aluminium ball in his first bite! He felt terrible, and had to make a Plan B where he inserted a new ball into a doughnut, covered up the traces, and let me "find it".

So there you go...Zac's pictures of doughnuts, Micole’s question of asking about a prize for finding something in her food, and this "forgetter" has a new memory. Funny how that works 🍩 

PEBBLING

You know how I always include images and links to funny or poignant videos and articles, in this newsletter? It’s called pebbling, and is done from a place of love and caring (obviously!) 😍 

ENTERTAINMENT

I finished watching Bridgerton, and although I enjoyed it (I love the old period drama, the dresses, the chivalry, the balls, the calmness of that life), I thought the storyline between Penelope and Colin did not live up to the hype as sold to me on Instagram. But if you are looking for an "escape reality" show, it's still a good contender.

I watched an "escape reality" movie this week too - Dune. Wow. I read the book when I was in high school, but (surprise surprise 🤣 🤣 ) I didn't remember much of the storyline. I thought the movie was brilliant. I know a lot of it is shot with CGI and computer animations etc, but I choose to ignore all that and just marvel that movies of this scale are made at all. I am watching Dune 2 this week, and I honestly can't wait.

LAUGH OUT LOUD

I had a good giggle at this Saturday Night Life skit, which I think is one of their best ones. It’s all about the madness of ….nah, you have to watch it yourself.

OMG

This is not photoshopped. There is a 43m sky ladder in Austria, known as Stairway to Heaven, and you can climb it if you have the stomach for that sort of thing. I can tell you unequivocally that you will never find me on one of these contraptions, not for all the tea in China. (At least one person has died falling off this ladder, as if I needed more reason to stay away).

Thanks for reading!

That’s it for this week. (Want more? You can find past editions here). I hope you have a great weekend and upcoming week. Please keep sharing /forwarding to your friends/groups 😄 and let me know any feedback (you can just hit reply to this email, if you’re reading it in your inbox).

PS

I have acquired this skill! I let people be wrong on the Internet all the time 😀