Waterlogged {gone fishing}

I vaguely remember being a social creature. Roaming with a pack through the city streets. The weather is warming up and the days are getting longer. I hear sounds of life outside the walls of my house. The backfiring of a tailpipe at 2am while I am trying to sleep triggers the recollection of days gone passed. The problem with these memories is that real time only moves in one direction. All we have left are the vague memories of biking into the sunset and staying up all night. My wild pack is now scattered across the world; some trapped in cubicles, some struggling with a home life, some on the run, some stuck in Milwaukee. Either my broken memory is taking a toll on my relationships or I feel myself growing away from the life of a pack that hunts together for new opportunities. The springing sounds of nightlife have woken me up and I have decided to quit the race.

I patched the hole in the bottom of the boat that has been decaying on the side of my garage and I set off to the center of the water. It is calm and quiet out in the middle and the sunshine on my closed eyelids. The deep cobalt blue water meets the gradient of white turning to bird’s egg blue sky and I toss out my lines to that crisp horizon line. Into the darkness my bait goes. I kick up my feet with a newfound confidence of not worrying about what the next opportunity may bring. Blessed with a memory full of darkness, I have no regrets holding me back from the darkness of what the future may hold.

Waterlogged {cloud watching}

I’m staring at the clouds. Images morph and shift and evolve. What once was changes as the wind blows in the sky. I’m lying on my blanket just watching it all drift by. A T-Rex becomes a stallion becomes a beautiful lady becomes a space ship becomes a day dream becomes a nap on the beach. He chased me, he was sure it was a match. How quickly that certainty turned into doubt and disinterest. I can’t quite remember the end anymore. The pieces of that story disappeared.

As my skin absorbs the sun and the wind makes the hairs on my body stand up I dream of the beginning, that storybook start morphs into all the passionate opportunities that may have happened. Those moments when a hot summer thunder storm sends waves of electricity through the air and into your skin. When the first sent of a life-filled, green garden wafts up after the winter ice defrosts the earth and youthfulness takes over your actions. Songs go by, one after another, memories of loves once shared.

No regrets just memories playing like movies in my head as I nap on the shoreline. The waves crash and I disappear. Traffic goes by and I am gone, traveling through fragments of a life lived to the fullest. I can feel him here with me and in my mind there is comfort, protection, companionship, and friendship. Times goes by and the tide works its way up to me. A startling cut to my wandering mind’s daydream. Shaken, I jump up, shake my blanket and work my way up the shore. Feet pushing in the sand, my memories break apart and disappear, crushed into tiny grains of what once was. 

Waterlogged {intro}

When I was a child I would spend hours under water. I lived isolated from most other children so I would run wild through the forest to what I called the wishing well. It was a small spring in the back of my childhood home. I played a game with myself in that spring by holding my breath and going under water. I’d think of all my dreams and wishes and wait until I couldn’t breath any longer and then count till ten until I finally came up for air. As a child, I truly believed this action was the key to all my happiness.  Little did I know that it caused slight brain damage to my temporal cortex causing memory loss and distortion. As I’ve grown into adulthood I’ve developed systems to help hold onto life’s high and low points as they pass by me.

I collect things. I pick up pieces, remnants, and tokens of all my experiences. My pockets are always full. It’s as if my memory is a sieve and it’s always so tragic for my personal history when my pockets break into holes. I can never remember to mend the rips and tears until I’m out on my next adventure. If I were smart, I would be selective on which memory tokens I put in which pocket. Maybe subconsciously I do. Sometimes life is difficult to understand. Those things that happen can be so confusing for a girl who has no recollection of her past. Memory loss during my formative years equates to the formative years of Christianity when those who didn’t understand the new attitudes would whitewash beautiful frescos and burn Christian Icons. The same goes for me. When I am confused by the actions of others, my emotions shut down and I become more selective on which tokens I choose to bring home, pack away, and catalogue in my personal historical archive. 

During my teenage years, my father gave me a camera. The first rule about the camera was to put the strap around my neck. The next rule was to go explore. This machine was the perfect tool for me and my damaged brain to archive my life as it passed by. Now I sit in my little home with shelves built to the ceiling on almost every wall filled with boxes of trinkets, ticket stubs, photos, buttons, cards, notes, rocks, and anything that can trigger the slightest feeling of time and place all shuffled and mixed up.

Sometimes I can’t sleep. The dark void in my head gets frightening. It feels like death when I can’t remember how I got to where I am or where I am going. It’s nights like these that I have to turn on the light and start rummaging through the boxes of token triggers. The only problem is that the boxes get shuffled on the shelves along with the contents inside. Memories of my early childhood may be stacked next to photos from my college years, but it’s all right because it’s all me, my life. All these things have shaped who I am today. Even if I don’t remember my identity the clearest, I use how others respond to me as context clues on my character and attitude.

On the walls not filled with shelves of boxes I display all the things I love. I try to keep the negative out. There is no sense in holding onto things that make me upset. It is a special gift to have a damage memory. Erasing the bad is so easy for a girl like me. Brain damage can be a positive experience once you can take control of your situation and shape it to your advantage.