Memories Litter My Office Shelves
In response to Dancing Elephants prompt #12 of 52
There are so many wonderful memories throughout a lifetime. How can you possibly keep and hold them all?
My answer is to outsource the remembering. I have a home that is filled with mementos, each of which reminds me of a particular moment in time, and how that moment felt. When I see the memento, I relive the moment.
Let me take you on a tour of my office, to demonstrate.
Awards and art remind me of friends
To my left is a bookcase. On top of the bookcase is a framed comic strip from the Narbonic comic — the master copy that was penned and inked by the artist for digitization. One of my friends bought it and sent it to me, because he knew I liked the comic. And because the main character in the second panel makes my signature sound, “Yeep.”
That reminds me of many fun times in college, including the time someone recorded my laugh and ran it through a synthesizer, then played it at different modulations. Or the time someone made me laugh walking past a building being renovated, and I hit the resonant frequency of the scaffolding so that the whole building started to hum. It also reminds me of the many happy hours reading the comic.
To the sides of the bookcase are two floating shelves. The shelves hold awards. The shelves remind me of the many happy hours I spent shopping at thrift stores with my friend in Colorado. The writing awards remind me of the infamous EPPIE awards in Florida where the stage lights caught fire. I nearly killed myself getting off the stage when presenting an award and got a round of applause for going up to accept an award barefoot. I had so much fun cracking up with MaryJanice Davidson that we nearly got thrown off a bus. And Piers Anthony named me in his newsletter as a very helpful young lady. Poor Piers really didn’t know how to respond to an entire busload of women who wrote erotic romance after he made the mistake of asking, “What do you write?” Fun times.
Then there are the Toastmasters trophies. Not so much because I remember the competitions that produced them, but for all the memories of my friends in our Toastmasters club. And, of course, I also remember when I was the MC for a Table Topics competition at the regional conference. Hundreds of Toastmasters were in the audience, and I walked offstage without giving the contestant his prompt! So many people came up afterward to tell me how impressed they were with my recovery, and to ask if I wanted to become a professional speaker. Just thinking about it gives me a warm glow.
Sand, sovereignty, and sibling love
In front of me is the dresser that holds office supplies. On top are displayed all of the books I’ve written. (Because I offload those memories, too — if I’m asked about something I wrote, I usually have to look it up.) There are also three mementos.
First is a glass heart filled with black sand, from one of the beaches we visited on our honeymoon. I don’t know which beach, because the descriptive paper is pulled away from the glass and is buried by sand. DIY crafts specify using rubber cement instead of glue sticks for a reason. But that reminds me of the entirety of our wonderful honeymoon, and even the part where I got pulled over by airport security because black volcanic sand has many of the same characteristics as gunpowder. It reminds me of how much I love my husband, and how we started our life together with an adventure that just keeps going.
Next is an art deco antique pen holder. When I bought my first home, I bought a guest book and set it next to the pen holder, so every visitor could leave a note about their trip. That reminds me of all the things I did to finish and customize that home, stenciling walls and cabinetry, planting flower beds, and refinishing art deco waterfall furniture. That house was my first expression of who I was as a sovereign individual, not just a member of a group, or a transient who could make no lasting impact. So many wonderful memories, including my wonderful brother driving me down to Brooklyn to buy the furniture.
Finally, there is a sterling silver cat music box. That was a gift from my brother. Not only does it remind me of how much he loves me, but of all our many conversations about saving versus spending. (One guess which side each of us falls on.) It even reminds me of my former cat, who is the one that inspired him to give me that particular gift. And all the love I shared with her during the 14 years we were together.
Moments in time
To my right are three more bookcases. They have three frames on top of them. The first contains a family photo of a Christmas dinner at my brother’s old house. My aunt and my mom are no longer with us, and my cousin moved to Seattle. But I remember how much my brother’s girlfriend worked to create a feast that everyone would love, which is a challenge considering that we are a family full of food sensitivities and picky eaters. I also remember my brother’s pride in renovating the antique home and the way their dog would eat vegetables from a fork and drink wine from a glass. Such a delicate eater!
The other two are framed certificates of my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. It reminds me of that crazy summer, working from sunup to late at night in the programming lab on my Master’s computer program, the AI that demonstrated the philosophical thought experiment of the Prisoner’s Dilemma while playing the game of Risk. I finished the degree in 15 months instead of 2 years because I’d been accepted into a Ph.D. program at another school. I don’t really remember much of what happened during that time, but I remember the feeling when my program could finally beat me. And my mother’s pride in not only my degrees but in my jobs at IBM, even though she never did understand what the heck I did.
There is one other item on the bookshelf, a ceramic cake topper in the form of an open book. On the right page is a sculpted bouquet. On the left page is a clear sticker with my husband’s and my names and the date of our wedding. Not only do I remember the wedding, but I remember all the fun we had designing a book-themed wedding reception. The wedding favors were bookmarks. The centerpieces were sculptures made of books, flowers, and candles. Guests got to take books home with them, so we carefully matched guests with the books we thought they’d enjoy. Even the menu, program, and “Legend of the Jordan almonds” were book-themed, looking like an open antique journal, with the text printed on the lines.
The mementos capture moments in time, but each moment is the gateway to so many more memories.
Conclusion
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to revel in all these wonderful recollections. And just imagine, if these are the memories relegated to my office, which is primarily given over to books, how many memories must fill the other rooms of our house.
I am sometimes envious of people who can connect to moments from their past by looking at photographs. Photographs have never quite seemed real to me, not in the way physical objects that you can pick up and hold are. But they take up so much less space!
This is a response to the prompt by Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles:
Here are my three favorite responses so far to this prompt.
Akemi Sagawa wrote about the slow transition of memories that were solely yours, to memories that you share with someone else. I thought it was a wonderful description of how marriage affects so much of your life.
Dr. Preeti Singh wrote about the fear accompanying a premature birth, and the surprising outpouring of love from the family to those who celebrated the baby’s arrival. The love replaced the fear.
Sanghita Pal writes about her memories of a dear friend and inspiration, the potter who taught her how to set her soul free with clay. Her words are beautiful, but it’s the photos that really knock this one out of the park.
Read all of my responses (so far) to the Dancing Elephants Press 52 weekly writing prompts:
