Fragments

I feel like I should preface everything I say or write with “ I am not a scientist, and I don’t play one on TV.” I am also not an expert. But I do remain curious. I am aware of the risks of curiosity, but I am more afraid of those ideas that I see as inviolate and unchanging. My assumption makes these thoughts and sacred thesis mythological. The more sacred, the more difficult it becomes to abandon them when new information, data, or proof arises.
Through my four-year deconstruction and the ongoing reconstruction of my worldview, I found an uncomfortable process for letting go of what ‘I know to be true.’ In the vast space that opened, everything became a possibility.
Recently, I have been pondering fragments: those disconnected nuggets in my/our memory that don’t easily connect to a story or larger narrative. The expression that nature hates a vacuum runs parallel to my angst when synthesis eludes me. A snippet of a memory or a thought surfaces, and my defense mechanism begins searching for association and connection. Regardless of how disparate the nugget is, I stick it into an existing stream and usually ignore the created discordance.
My remembered youth, or what I imagine from my childhood, is cluttered with places; my grandmother’s house, a machine yard, the rink shack, and events; a race won, a terrible whooping, a crush. There isn’t enough in the synapsis connection to reconstruct or validate them or enough vaguery to chock it up as a dream.
The tiny, once significant, pieces that memory escapes are equally exciting and potentially troubling. In the middle of a story (spell check insisted muddle), I sense the creeping dread that a lapse is coming, and suddenly I don’t recall the name of the place or person I am referencing. The panic isn’t pathological. I don’t fear that I am losing my mind. I am prepared for that. Instead, I dread the shrinking of my life, the reduction in capacity, the division of emotions.
Focus can drill down and force a recollection — real or imagined, and the ‘pop’ reconnects the floating piece to the picture. Fortunately, or maybe not, it is like clicking a puzzle piece into place. The click reassures me that this is where it belongs. Today, I am not convinced the click test is reliable, but I don’t have the will or ability to dwell in the stress and chaos of feeling unhinged.
As I watch my mom’s life shrink, the realization that time eventually unwinds all the deeds, ideas, passions, and memories are impossible to ignore. If I/we live long enough or too long, the threads unravel, and the tapestry blurs. I am afraid that I will reach a time where I am still turning Oxegen into CO2 but without any sense of purpose. My mom’s conversations range from the 1930s to yesterday, although yesterday is never chronological. I accept the dissonance and try not to correct any lapse ar addition to the narrative. I have developed a defense mechanism that has me viewing our time as an experiment where I observe the complexity and simplicity of the human mind. If I dwelled in the interpersonal, I would be devastated by watching her get smaller and her vibrancy and sassiness fade. On the other hand, if I stick with pseudo-scientific fascination, I don’t weep as much.
The big confession is that I see myself in her confusion and selfishly worry that I will live too long and be the other person in these conversations.
The positive from the fragments is that we can sit in silence with each other. I no longer feel the need to fill the void or ask entertaining questions. Some days, I just talk about her great-grandchildren, and other days, she tells me about her job that she goes to every day because we all need to be busy. Even though she has been retired for 40 years, I don’t need to press her on the details. We are closer today without living the same truth because we have enough fragments to share with unconditional acceptance.