As I have whinged before, my memory is shot. This is sometimes an embarrassment - think totally forgetting the name of one of your sisters in law - who happens to have been married to your brother for over thirty years. I am very bad at assigning names to faces. I have joked when I run into one of the other swimmers at a shopping centre that I don't recognise them with their clothes on, but it is more fundamental than that. Out of context things and people move firmly into the unknown realms.
It is often frustrating, but I have learnt that I need lists. Lots of lists. Which I virtually never complete despite cheating and always adding an easy thing (like clean teeth or feed cats) to my lists.
We had our kitchen redesigned about ten years ago but I still from time to time reach out for the knife block and can't find it - because I have reached for it in its old position. And sometimes, particularly when I am tired, words will escape me. They are in my head, I can feel them there, but I cannot either compel or cajole them to emerge. Instead either I am left mouthing with nothing emerging or the wrong one will pop out. Until I went to Antarctica I called pelicans albatrosses, knowing as I said it that it was the wrong word. Now they are the p birds. I cannot say their names, but I can type them. Cushions are another problem word. Easily typed, stuck behind the throat. Also scissors. These words are some of the ones that I regularly misplace. Others come and go. Weird. And if the Freudians out there have any explanation please keep them to yourself.
However, after repeatedly visiting and commenting on Paper Chipmunk's latest post I am starting to think of the positives to having a sadly deficient memory.
I have said that I can reread murder mysteries because I don't remember who died, much less who killed them. True, but if I am being honest, they are not the only books I forget. So I can reapply myself to books on the groaning shelves where I have only a faint memory of pleasure and be excited all over again. And I can't really complain about that.
I have vague ideas about what is in the garden, but each season as the perennials re-emerge I am pleased and surprised and my daily walks become exciting voyages of discovery.
And the same applies to art works. Recently I saw a picture of one of Brancusi's sculptures, and was immediately filled with lust and longing. I wanted to hold it, and I loved what it said to me. But I had forgotten his work completely.
And then I thought of the pleasure I could get from rediscovering so many things. Things to see, things to do, things to savour. And yes, it is likely I will come across some horrors in there too - but I probably won't remember them. Or not clearly at any rate.
I can and do get depressed, but find it difficult to stay that way when I can't remember the details of what prompted my descent to the depths. Another win.
So this year I may just test the waters and see if I can indeed hide my own eggs. And I am already smiling at the prospect of opening a cupboard and finding an unexpected treat.
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