Memory

[mallorys_camera]

R & J have the type of kids one is immediately inspired to write a children's book about.

You know—the types of stories where the children find some sort of magic creature in the green hollow behind the pool that must be kept secret from the grownups and that grants Wishes That Come True With a Twist (Five Children & It, Half Magic). R & J's kids are just the most winsome, brilliant, beautiful children ever.

They were definitely the high point of an action-packed Memorial Day weekend during which I also hung out with real-life Flavia in the Catskills and Ichabod in Cold Springs.

Real-life Flavia told me our mutual pal Betsy has had a recurrence of her Lyme disease, necessitating a medical leave from her job. And I felt like such an awful friend because Betsy has reached out to me a few times in the last four months, and I just ignored her. Why? Because Betsy requires effort. And I like Betsy, but I just didn't have the energy, the Schlock job drained me so completely & left me feeling so...extinguished... as though there was nothing remarkable or special about me at all: I was just a colorless cog in an awful machine.

I was actually pretty lonely during that time. But I couldn't deal with anybody else's problems, and Betsy always has problems. I was lonely for someone who would be solicitous about my problems.

Sigh...

I will call Betsy sometime this week.



Watching R & J's enchanting children made me ponder the nature of childhood memory. The baby is the baby; her hippocampus still hasn't laid down neural connections with most of her other cortical structures. She doesn't even have enough neural connections for a personality yet, although she does have a temperament—remarkably serene, observant, easily delighted.

The two older children (ages 4 and 2½) are old enough to have personalities. Princess Star is independent, smart, choosy about the objects of her affection, with more than a touch of fire. Prince Fire Engine is a total charmer, extroverted, and possesses the largest vocabulary (words and syntax) I have ever observed in a 2½-year-old. They are lively, interactive children whose lives are filled with adventures—but in all likelihood, they won't remember a single one of them when they are older.



I saw this with my own children, too, of course.

When Ichabod was 2½, I threw a cup at his father. I missed! I'm a lousy thrower. But Ichabod, sitting on his father's lap, understandably got very, very upset.

His father & I got divorced about a year later, and in my defense, Mrs. Hare 2.0 subsequently threw an answering machine. Bill really was that infuriating! But the cup got mythologized, and the answering machine did not. Maybe because there were no kids present when the answering machine was hurled? I dunno.

All throughout his childhood, for years, whenever Ichabod & I fought over anything, there would alway come a moment on the downside of the argument when Ichabod would sigh dramatically and stage a pensive look, which would prompt me to ask, "What's up, Boo?" And he would tell me, "I am remembering the cup."

This naturally made me feel awash with guilt.

Last Thanksgiving, I asked him: "Do you still remember the cup?"

"Huh?" he asked.

And when I explained, he said, "Oh, that. I think I can remember remembering it. If that makes sense. But the actual event itself?" He squinched up his face.

Yesterday, since I'd just spent time around the remarkable H________ children and was curious about memory, I asked him again.

This time, he said, of course, he remembered it.

"But you didn't last time we talked about it!"

"Yes, I did!" he replied indignantly.

No, he did not.

But I let it slide. Because what would be the point of arguing?



Of course, it was fabulous spending time with Ichabod. It's always fabulous spending time with Ichabod. Ichabod & RTT are my two favorite people on the planet.

But Dia Beacon turned out to be closed.

And Cold Spring turned out to be very different than I had remembered it. I hadn't been there since before the pandemic. Back then it was filled with the most fabulous antique shops—there must have been a dozen of them on Main Street—including the wonderful Doll Hospital where I would stand for hours and watch the proprietor do restoration on vintage dolls.

But there was maybe one antique store open on Main Street yesterday.

And Ichabod was out of it because he hadn't gotten enough sleep, and I was out of it because my knee was really throbbing, and I'd rather stupidly parked my car at the top of a steep hill, hiked down to meet him at the Metro North Station, and thus faced the prospect of hiking back up the hill. (Of course, he volunteered to get the car and come back for me, but I said, No, because I am either (a) macho, (b) a masochist, (c) dumb, (d) all of the above.)

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the non-quaint-and-charming village outside Cold Spring where all the real people live, and then drove up to the Chuang Yen Monastery—which was not the same as I remembered it, either. The Largest Sitting Buddha in the Western Hemisphere was behind locked doors, and we spent a long time searching for the pond with the carnivorous goldfish, and when we finally found it, there weren't any goldfish, just a few brownish-green carp, and they no longer stormed the little landing when people gathered to look at them.

I could tell Ichabod felt bad that he was not "fully present" as his therapist would have put it.

This morning, he texted me apologizing again: I haven't been sleeping well.

And then he told me he had ordered a whole bunch of gnomes and pink flamingos for my garden—I think because he kept asking me yesterday what he could buy me, and I kept saying, Nothing. The only things I want are garden ornaments.

###

I had been thinking about gardening today, but I think instead I'm gonna stay sedentary & ice my knee.