Digging out the ivy

The past has left us, so we can leave it too.

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Hi,

How are you this week? Can you remember the previous October?

What does it say to you? How does it make you feel?

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I was told by my writing mentor to write a 3-page essay about my earliest memory, and so here, I hope, it is.

It’s not without hesitation that I approach this task. I’m not a fan of the past. I used to be, but then I learned what I had to learn, and it left me no choice.

Before, I’d dive backwards deeply and frequently. I had replayed these extinct moments until I was sure I had memorised every tiny aspect of them. I used to take pride in how much I could remember. This commitment to the past, which demanded the sacrifice of the present, had me lost. I think that is why, perhaps, I’m done with it. The pride is gone now, and alongside it, the past, as it should, has left me, too.

My Grandma is a master of her past. She can pick any moment from those already lived and describe it to me in thorough detail, including the hours, dates, weather, and all the errands and commitments that were due, interwoven with worn-out thoughts and reflections.

She often invites me into her house of memory, which appears to me as a blue, wooden cottage, just like the ones you can still find in the Polish countryside. It homes a warm, densely furnished and generously decorated, incessantly welcoming space. One accesses it by climbing a few uneven steps made of stones and dried mud and then through a wooden door with paint coming off in flakes like dry skin leaving the body. The entrance is crowned with ivy and geranium.

There’s soft light coming through the windows, carefully enveloping all the contents of the room, blurring the edges and fading the colours. The windows are wooden too, double-leaf and squeaky, with a metal knob that makes me think of a “T” someone accidentally stepped on.

I never looked through these windows; I have a feeling that the spaces behind them are where Grandma resorts to in those rare moments of seeking solitude. If I had to take a bet, though, I’d say that right below the window, there are beds of flowers and vegetables — two things Grandma loves a lot — and I think they wouldn’t necessarily grow separately; they could be mixed in all possible ways, and that would be fine. If she could grow bars of chocolate, I’m sure they’d be growing abundantly, too — and so it makes two of us.

I’m always in awe of how much she fits in this house; when I think of the countless colourful memories stored there, I can’t help but feel concerned for her now small and fragile body — won’t it collapse underneath this weight? Against all odds, she seems to be doing great.

I cherish the moments I get to spend in this warm and softly lit house of my Grandma’s, where she always invites me without notice and invariably with this gentle look in her eye, underneath which you can tell there’s both acceptance for silence and longing to be heard.

Sometimes I wonder, though, whether it is that she remembers and recalls these memories as she pleases, or is it that at the age of eighty-nine, your mind, scared by the inevitably nearing end, begins walking backwards, pulling the present into the past, turning it inside out like a tight sweater that doesn’t want to deny the body of its warmth so it holds onto it with all its threads. Can she still tell which thought belongs where? Well, it actually hardly matters.

I, on the other hand, feel as if my house of memory resembles something more of a wretched shack at best, made of sticks found in the forest which fell off the firm wooden bodies, no longer needed by them and thus destined to rot. The sticks are tied together with ivy dug up from the mossy floor, and the whole construction is furnished with leftovers from many lives. I don’t have anything against shacks. It’s more to say that I don’t necessarily possess much building material to begin with. There are a few reasons to it.

The first is depression. I had spent most of my teenage years and early adulthood in darkness. Even if there occurred an occasional blurb of light, I suppose it wasn’t enough for the camera film of my memory to develop a quality copy. When it comes to the elements that were already there, I suppose they got consumed by the darkness as well. At first, I worried about that, unsure who am I supposed to be without the guidebook of my memory forging the path onward.

Nonetheless, I came to terms with the thought that perhaps I would never be able to retrieve a great deal of what once happened to me. It’s not very romantic, and I surely would be disappointed with my behaviour, shall I consult it with my teenage self, whose idea of happiness, love, death, and all things in-between was constructed from the visions and ready-made conclusions found in various literary works. Yet, forgetting is what had to be done to preserve something else, in my opinion, much more useful than the past — my sanity.

The second difficulty results from the times I live in. I don’t think it would be fair to give all the credit for fragmenting my memory to depression without mentioning the tireless and ever-expanding influence of the internet, and especially social media. Life from before was more memorable because one lived with greater attention and engagement of more senses. Today, I feel like we’ve transferred doomscrolling into our 3D lives, and we just scroll and scroll until we die, and that’s it.

I might sound too pessimistic, and that’s what my brother often tells me, but I am not sure if that’s my condition. Such a conclusion doesn’t appear pessimistic to me; it just is as it is. And anyone can do what they please with it if they feel the need to do anything at all. I choose not to judge it.

I feel my mind is attention-deprived and overpacked with things that hardly matter. I know ways of emptying it, but they demand a certain level of social isolation, which, while tempting at times, isn’t helpful when trying to build some sort of a career (and that’s what I try to do until we don’t have to pay to be allowed to live anymore). Thus, my memory is inevitably endangered.

Finally, the third difficulty in fetching anything of shape, taste, smell or colour from the very much aired-out shack of my memory is that I simply lost interest in my past altogether. It can be due to the reason I had already mentioned in the beginning; I suppose I simply overate the past, and it made me sick. Sick to the point that every time I try to revisit it, I feel repulsed. Again, it’s not in a negative way at all. It’s just how I grew, or perhaps, fell apart to be, and I am pretty okay with it.

The main reason here, though, is that I learned not to give too much importance to what’s gone, nor do I spend much time pondering what’s hypothetically yet to come. I mostly resort to the simplicity of what’s in front of me. Sometimes, I wonder if it doesn’t make me what they call a “simple fellow” in a you-know-what-way. To sit like that without a thought, what a foolish way of living. I don’t mind that too much, though. After spending most of my life overthinking, I’m rather satisfied with the lack of unnecessary contents in my head.

That’s why I’m not very keen on writing a three-page essay on my earliest memory. It propels me to retrieve what doesn’t belong here anymore.

I certainly could pretend I still think (as it seems I should do) that such a memory matters to me greatly; that without tracing back to it, I wouldn’t know where I came from. But even if it’s true, does it actually matter? I don’t think it does. For after all, I am not my thoughts, actions or emotions. I am not my job, my relationship, my family, my friends. I am not the piece of land I sleep and eat on. I stopped defining myself. My everyday meditation aims at dismantling all concepts and ideas held hostage by my mind. There is freedom in such empty-mindedness. I don’t say it allows one to become who they wish to be, that would imply walking in circles. Instead, it enables one to become what they already are, and have always been. Non-definition frees one from attachments. And then, perhaps, we can indeed become who we want to be; although by that time, we’d already know it’s just a play, nothing more.

Yet if I had to say something, if I were made to grope for at least a crumb of memory, I’d say that it’s about pulling out an ivy from the muddy forest floor.

With dirty hands, long brown hair falling loosely on my shoulders. My feet forced into too-small trainer shoes because I was growing faster than my parents were making money. I was most probably wearing some jeans previously worn by another child, and then a t-shirt with a flower on it or perhaps a giant checked shirt stolen from my brother’s wardrobe.

I considered myself strong in all the ways I could think of despite being six or seven at that time and the youngest of my siblings. I would defend my sister from our older brothers when they tried to pull a nasty joke on her, and I would defend strangers from all the other things, too.

Deep down, I knew I’d devote my life to defending people from the world, or perhaps the world from the people. However, now, as I grow and learn, I come to realise it’s actually about Self-defence — from oneself.

So I would pull the ivy strands, one by one, using them to bind the walls made of sticks, ensuring to leave larger gaps for the windows. I was building a shack, the role of which was to then be forgotten — for its own good — and to return to the place from which it, along with all of us, had risen — the mossy forest floor.

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Today’s wisdom comes from Regina, the author of the philosophical web comic series “The Oxherd Boy” (http://oxherdboy.org).

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To make sense of it all, write.

Once you learn something new or are reminded about what you already know, it's good to put your thoughts on paper. It will make them a bit more clear for future reference.

Pro tip: As you learned in the earlier letter, keep your attention on your breath while writing. It will make it easier to focus and let your thoughts flow undisturbed. Write whatever comes first to your mind without judging, curating, or censoring it.

PROMPT:

🖋️ What's your definition of yourself? Who are you in your own eyes? How much of 'you' is contained in that description?

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That’s it for today, friends!

Stay safe, drink water, smile at strangers, talk to pets and pet plants.

You can reply to this email and tell me if you liked this story, have any questions, want to add anything or would like me to cover something in particular next time. (Thank You to those who did — I’m always happy to hear from you ❤️ )

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P.S. Please note that this story is based on my personal experience, practice, and the books I’ve read. I share what helped me and others whom I spoke to. The information in this article is not intended to diagnose or treat any mental health condition. Don’t follow online advice if your mental health is severely at risk. Reach out to friends, professionals, and other groups to gain relevant support for your particular situation.

Thank you for being here.

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Warmly,

Justyna