Memory

(You may gently hum the only melody that Cats has while you read this.)  If you are of a certain age as I am, you know that your memory is slipping away on little cat feet.  Many of us have had the experience of going into a room or going to another floor and not remembering why we went there.  I can't remember where I put my glasses down or my cell phone or a book I was reading or almost any other object I can think of. In fact, most of my waking hours are spent using techniques to help me remember something.  I write things down (if a shopping list exceeds three items I have to write them down or I will forget at least one thing). If something needs to go somewhere, I put it by the front door so I stumble over it on the way out--but I'll remember it.

A few weeks ago, Becky had part of a Potbelly sandwich left over from lunch, so I put it in the refrigerator when I got home.  I think.  When we went to take it out to eat it, it wasn't there.  We couldn't find it in the car, on top of the refrigerator, at Becky's office, anywhere.  Now I think I might have eaten it and forgotten I did so.  It's just pitiful.

Just yesterday, we went looking for a big frame made out of plastic pipe that the Chorale hung signs on in front of the church when we did our concerts there.  The preschool at our church wanted to use it for their registration sign, so I looked in the closet where we had stored it and it wasn't there.  The preschool director and I looked through every closet we could think of but no frame.  We called people who might have seen it, but no one had.  Finally, I said that if we couldn't find it I would make another one. I was on the original committee that formed the preschool in 1973 and I like to do what I can to support it.

As I was driving away from the church, I looked over at the sign for a school that will start in the other building in the fall.  It hung between two vertical timbers in the ground, but there was something familiar about it--a white pipe frame.  It was the one we had been looking for.  We had let the new school use it and totally forgotten about it.

Since the frame was in use, I had to make another one, which was all right. I enjoy doing things like that, as long as I can remember how to.