Memory Cafe

I talk to my world as I pass through it. I greet dogs and their owners. I tickle pink peonies and exclaim over burnt orange rosebuds that burst into yellow flames. I question squirrels and reply to bird calls. To those eight turkeys wobbling and weaving on the road ahead, I suggest they choose a lane and stick to it.

Not surprising, then, that the song I Talk to the Trees began spinning in my head. A group I belonged to in college (!!) performed it at a choral event. I love the tune and the arrangement they chose. I can recite the first verse perfectly right down to the echoed phrases:

I talk to the trees
but they don’t listen to me
(listen to me)
I talk to the stars
but they never hear me.
(never hear)
The breeze hasn’t time
(hasn’t time)
to stop and hear what I say.
(what I say)
I talk to them all in vain.

Memories. Unique. Personal. Entertaining.

A friend told me he once misread a sign he passed daily. Interesting, he thought. A Memory Café. Months later, he finally saw the second word. Care. Memory Care.

I like Memory Café better. We get to choose our memories, combine them creatively.

My brain understood the intent of the second verse of that song, but the words had slipped away.

Luckily my Memory Café menu allows à la carte selections and served me a verse from Blue Moon:

Suddenly you appear before me
the only one my arms will ever hold.
I hear somebody whisper please adore me
and when I looked the moon had turned to gold.

Memories. How puzzling the pieces remembered and those forgotten.

I remember a concert by the Divine Miss M (aka Bette Midler) at Red Rocks in Colorado. It was 1974. I had never heard a single song by her before that. I had never heard of her before that.

She swept onto the stage hurling F-bombs against the walls, ranting about the amazing setting, obscene expressions of awe that echo in my memory. I cannot tell you a single song she performed, but I remember that dramatic entry.

It must be surprise that embeds certain fragments, discards others. Like the elevator that burst into open air and scaled the side of the building; my sister’s dismay as I sank to the floor in fear.

Or that creepy foreboding on a Montana highway when a green-and-cream El Camino overtook my Ford pickup for the second time, then hung beside me in the passing lane. The driver honked to ensure I got full view of his exposed equipment.

Ah, yes. The Memory Café. Some items more appealing than others.

WHAT’S HE UP TO?

I encountered racism yesterday. It was so subtle I could have missed it.

The watering system in my section of the complex hasn’t functioned yet this year. The landscape and irrigation supervisor was walking the property searching for the cause.

As I went to the mailbox, a car pulled into my neighbor’s drive. My neighbor does massage as a second job, so this was not surprising.

When I turned back toward my unit, the person from the car was still standing beside her car watching the landscape guy. I was startled when she asked, “What’s he up to?”

I probably don’t need to mention that the man is black.

“He’s the grounds crew supervisor,” I said. “He’s trying to find out why the water system isn’t working.”

She said nothing and proceeded to my neighbor’s door.

I wanted to follow her, pound on the door and ask if she would have been bothered if the man had been white. I wanted to ask if she felt threatened because he wasn’t white. Had she thought she was protecting something – me, my neighbor, the complex – by watching him?

The man never heard her question, thank goodness. But I felt shame for the many times he has undoubtedly been confronted in similar situations.