I want to thank everyone who took last week’s Wednesday Challenge and committed to doing something outside of your comfort zone. I hope to report on my projects when they come to fruition, but I was able to take the scary first steps. And whenever you feel hesitant to do something uncomfortable, just think of nee’s rectal exam.
Or not.
I borrowed this week’s challenge from Astonish Yourself: 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life
The goal is to go dumpster diving into your brain to recover an old treasure you thought lost forever. As I was nodding off to sleep last night, I seized on a starting point: The 80s song, “Neverending Story.” As I stepped into the song, the path revealed itself one step at a time:
- Going to the movies with Jenny in the summer after my senior year of high school. Holding hands and getting back together again.
- Remembering that I used to go across town to take a calculus class at the rival Armijo High School. Having the audacity to walk into one of their rallies wearing my letterman’s jacket.
- Sitting in front of my beautiful ex-girlfriend in calculus. Both Jenny and my ex went to Armijo High.
- Finally, the long buried gem: Jenny’s best friend walked in to calculus one day to deliver a flower to me (one of those club fund raising activities). When she saw me for the first time, she exclaimed, “You’re cute!”
I had forgotten all about that incident. I’m unearthing it for all the fossilized validation I can get.
I tried the experiment a few more times, and I’m amazed at the types of memories I have. Some are memories of memories of memories (my earliest ones from my toddler years are like this), and others I’m not even sure happened (I have a vague recollection of running on a dare, clad only in my tighty-whities, onto the street in front of my house and dancing in the moonlight for a minute or so). Here are a few more I dug out:
- The defeated look on my sixth grade rival’s face when I crushed his Rubik’s Cube solution time (my geekhood blossomed early).
- My best friend and I had crushes on the two smartest girls in the eighth grade (I remembered mine, but had forgotten about his).
- My parents catching me trying to watch Porky’s on a scrambled cable channel (an embarrassing memory I likely suppressed).
It’s your turn. These have to be forgotten memories. If you remember remembering them, they don’t count.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Miko // Feb 7, 2007 at 7:38 pm
My husband and I actually did this last night, in that I-should-be-asleep-so-the-lights-are-off-but-I’m-not-tired-so-I’m-talking moment. I remembered details of my parent’s house in Germany (I would’ve been no older than 4) as well as keeping chewing gum on my bed post for later enjoyment (”Were you often sick as a child…?” my husband asked. No, actually, I think it strengthened my immune system) and then lying to my mom about where I had gotten said gum if I was caught chewing it.
Reading through your memories, I remember giving a bloody nose to a girl who called me a Nazi in gradeschool (I’d no idea what it meant at the time but I knew it was horrible); having my gradeschool crush attempt to tease me by chasing me with a snake, which I was not afraid of, so he lost interest, ah, Matthew Tailor, where are you now?!; and sneakily watching scary movies (Gremlins and Lisa) at a sleepover after nearly dying in an attempt to rollerskate down a hill (this was in Seattle, where hills are nothing to be sneezed at).
The mind is an amazing device! Who knows what memories lurk…?
2 Bored in Vernal // Feb 7, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Hey, John–some of those memories are buried for a reason!! Aren’t lost memories supposed to be dangerous?
But your 6th grade Rubik’s cube nerdiness reminded me of my 6th grade algebra class. Back in the 70’s when all kinds of educational experiments were going on, we had a self-guided math class. You read the chapter, did some exercises, and notified the teacher when you were ready to take the chapter test. Phil Cushman and I were racing each other to prove which gender was best suited to mathematics. We were just about finished with the book when the rest of the class was on chapter 3.
It’s been at least 25 years since I have thought about that day we took the final exam. Both of us went into it with not one point lost on any of the chapter tests. I didn’t know if I was ready, but I had to take the test that day or fall behind my nemesis. When the teacher graded the test, the whole class gathered around (or at least that is what I seem to remember.) Phil Cushman got one wrong. And I….scored 100%!! Victory for the girls that day. How sweet it was.
You’re right, that was a treasure.
3 John // Feb 8, 2007 at 9:38 am
Warning: mental spelunking can be addictive! Thanks, Bored and Miko, for sharing your lost treasures with us. Any other takers?
4 John White // Feb 8, 2007 at 11:21 am
I tried your exercise, and remember lying down and closing my eyes. And that’s about it.
5 John // Feb 8, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Sorry, John. You don’t get off that easily.
Vee have vays of keeping you avake…
6 nee // Feb 8, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Hey now! In additon to my rectal I had a mammogram last week as well. I was ALL about the new situtations last week.
As for this challenge, as my new years resolution to meditate daily continues, I’m all about being in the present and mindfulness, baby. I spend waaaay to much time being nostalgic. Generally, when a forgotten memory creeps in, it’s rarely good and when that happens, well, I breathe in, breathe out, move on. So I may have to pass.
If something innoculous pops up, I’ll share it.
Will next week’s be recovered memories? ROFL I’d really like to recover a history of something fun like say, um, 5 years of traveling the world for National Geographic.
7 John White // Feb 12, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Came back to this post and had a weird flash back based on Miko’s response. It was saving the gum that did it. My sister and I did something similar, but at a certain point, my mother decided that the best thing was to assign us each a left-over margarine container in the fridge, for our gum.
But then we started keeping other stuff there, especially bacon from Sunday morning meals. Stretching bacon out over days became a thing with us. How slowly can you eat a piece of bacon?!
Also, franken-gum. That’s when you assemble multiple pieces of gum together into a giant old-gum blob which is somehow better? I was eleven: who knows why things make sense to an eleven-year-old.
8 Miko // Feb 13, 2007 at 8:57 am
mmm, frakengum. I never called it that, but s/times I’d mix two pieces for fun or color. I never saved bacon, but I did once mark something in the fridge as “Poison, Do Not Eat” (because I determined this was the only way for the youngest’s food not to get eaten in a house with 9 ppl having access to the fridge). I got into huge trouble for that :-p
9 John White // Feb 13, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Yeah, frankengum (we never actually called it that, either) was a mixture of multiple -old- pieces of personal gum. Like I said, who can explain the mind of a youth (even a youthful me)?
I thought the classic “subtle warn-off” is the sign that reads “Experiment.”
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