The world is my memory palace

“…now that I believe Christ has gone to prepare a place for me, I am free to receive the signposts as aids intentionally sent.” Amy Lee, This Homeward Ache

I drove alone through the Umpqua National Forest a few days ago, along the river, and past an army of burnt spires. They were trees before the fires got to them. Now they mark the past like headstones, and all the underbrush is taking over—vine maple, manzanita, huckleberry, and others. But some of that brush is turning to autumn fire, itself.

It’s starkly beautiful, and I feel bad saying this, but the blackened and scorched trunks make a remarkable contrast to the orange and red of changing leaves. They add to the glory. The river was slow and black, and I wanted to pull over to take pictures, to imprison the river and black trees and flaming cinders in pixels I would only forget in my camera roll, but I didn't. It’s in my mind, and I’m pulling it up again right now.

I have a vivid memory from childhood of riding in the bed of a pickup truck on the way to visit family, lying on my back and seeing the treetops touching overhead as we drove. It was fall, because the trees were all the colors of the rainbow except blue. But the sky was blue, so there it was: a rainbow. In my memory there were no burnt trees, and I think that is correct. I never remember there being forest fires back then.

Back then. My memory is old now, and can I even trust it? Some of the past has completely burned up and some lives on in the new stories I tell about it, things I make up to fill in the blanks. How can I not remember which child said which thing and how old they were when they took their first steps, but I remember this drive from the mid-80s?

Well. That one is obvious. The trees are a history continually repeating their changes, but my children change forward, and not in circles. I remember the trees from the back of that pickup truck because the trees make the same change, every year. And because there are seasons for the trees, I have an anchor for the memory. Driving alone through the changed landscape of the Umpqua, I am eight years old, watching the world pass over me.

And now I want to go back and say that the dead trees on my drive were not like headstones. They were an outline, the way my older brother taught me to outline my colorings in black crayon first, to keep a border and make the colors pop.

Ruined Monastery of Eldena near Greifswald, Caspar David Friedrich

A “memory palace” can help you memorize information by anchoring it to a location you know well, such as your home or a drive you make often. It works as a mnemonic device, relating a place or an item in that place, with a piece of information you want to remember.

For example, if you wanted to memorize a list of historical facts and their dates, you could start at your front door with date and fact number one. When you pass the piano, it prompts date number two. At the oven you remember number three, and so on. Or if you were memorizing a chapter from Scripture, each verse could be tied to a place, and as you move through the place you prompt yourself to the next verse. With practice and repetition, you can return to the palace in your mind and recall the facts in order.

I have listened to many an audiobook while walking the gravel road near my home, and once in awhile, if I am walking without earbuds, at the maple tree on the corner I remember the house in Wuthering Heights. When I pass the culvert and start to climb the hill, I remember Katherine May describing the sauna in Wintering. And as I pass the only house on my walk, which is the house we lived in when all my babies were born, I remember when the first apple seed was planted in North Woods: A Novel, by Daniel Mason.

At the trees, I remember driving a winding country road, watching the sky, lying on my back as the trees touched overhead.

At the burnt edges of the forest, I remember coloring with my brother, who is five years older than I and was probably well past the coloring stage himself, when he taught me how black made a border for my work to shine.

I am six and eight and forty-eight years old.

I forget a lot of things, and remember other things that seem pointless. Some of my knowledge is really just loose connections that I string together with logic and call “memories”. But some memories have undeniable solidity, and at really good times in my life I have purposed to take a snapshot in my mind of this very moment. Those snapshots come back into view when triggered by something else.

The world is my memory palace, and the things I remember are signposts. Sure—sometimes bad memories are fired up by the signposts. But I can choose the story that gets told. The black remnants of trees, even though they are a sad reminder of a devastating wildfire, also remind me of the times I was cared for by my big brother. That memory leads me to past and present reminders of my own kids, who are now all adults, and the ways they are good to each other.

Things connect in odd ways in my brain, and probably in yours, too. A whole string of thoughts are set in motion from a drive through a burnt forest, and they’ve been signposts to remind me of goodness and beauty, which are always signal fires of God’s kingdom.

---

Life in photos

my favorite walk/flaming fires/Leo and Augustine hamming/Brent snoozing/Grandma and Leo/Coach Grandma and Augie