Jenn Dolari

[Error: unknown template qotd]

I have two earliest memories, one which CAN'T be right, and one that may be right.

1) A memory of our first house being built. I KNOW this can't be right, since the house was built at least a year before I was born. My uncle owned it, then sold it to my dad a year later. I was only a few weeks old when we moved in. And yet, my memory of that house being built is incredibly clear. I seem to be standing slightly up the jhill leading down to our house, leaning on a pole, watching them make it. I shouldn't even be standing, at least not for another year or two at the LEAST. :)

2) The first memory I can say really IS mine, is lying in a makeshift crib in that same house, looking up at the ceiling as I'm slowly slowly slowly being rocked back and forth. Thing is, I'm not really rocking, I'm IMAGINING myself being rocked because no one is there to rock me. The makeshift crib was really a large wicker chair like you see here, turned on it's back, where I slept, suspended frmo the walls. It really was kind of magical. According to my mother, I only had that crib for about a month or two as an infant, when they bought me the real crib. So that memory has to be VERY young. Six Months to Year at the latest.

I have tons more memories from that time and could draw you the layout of our first house, the tin soldier lightswitch I had there, toys I had (I had this carpenter's belt I loved that stopped fitting me when I was five, so I cut it with scissors and tied the loops together with shoestrings to "expand" it. Mom was amazed. :)

I have a very special memory, and I hope it never goes away. My short term memory is not really all the short term. I can remember incidental conversations for months and years. Long term memories are sharp and clear, and while not photographic, are very detailed. And I describe it not so much as a "push" memory (I can't remember an appointment for the life of me), but a "pull" memory (once I've missed the appointment, I remember every detail of why I needed to go to the appointment).

Also, my memory resides behind "Memory Doors" that once opened, have TONS of information at hand. I want to remember a conversation I had with erinlefey I open her door, and there are more doors behind it, find a time frame, open that door, and then there's a door there with what we were specifically talking about.

I don't know how it works, but my biggest fear is, like the playland where all my characters are, I'll figure out "how it works" and it will go away, becuase now I have to actually figure the darned thing out, instead of just letting it run naturally. I also fear losing my memory. I remember so many things about my earlier life I don't want to lose.

Brandi Paige was girl I knew when I was four years old and we were best friends. I saw her again at age 13, and she had no idea who I was. I knew who she was, stuff we did, and good times we'd had. She didn't remember me. That hurt a lot. IT happened a lot. I got used to it. But even if BRandi, or Daniel, or Ashley, or Margie or Rocky or Margurite or Ms. Bodie, my pre-kinder teacher who looked a lot like Rosa Parks, don't remember me, I remember them, very well in fact.

That memory, by the way, of the conversation with Erin? IT was us, in Dean's car, talking about why so many places in Texas were called "Post Oak." Erin told me it was because all the oaks in the area made fine posts. I put that behind a memory door, just before she told me she joking, BECAUSE she knew I was making a note of that. :)