Mysteries of the brain

The brain is a curious and complex organ.  It’s the nexus of your thoughts, your activities, your strengths and your weaknesses.  It’s an engine that can get you up when you are down, can store memories more precious than gold while, without permission, erasing the names of the state capitals or where you put your car keys.  It’s a marvelous conglomeration of fibers, electricity and chemicals that make you who you are, organizing all of the input from your senses into an encyclopedia of your life.

And if I were to print out my encyclopedia, how would I name the books it created?

How about:

“Things I was sure I knew but now I’m not at all sure”

“Things that I’ve forgotten”

“Stuff I can recall without TRYING”

“My private stash of memories”

“All of the times tables except 7 and 8”

“Some  algebra that I aced in high school, but not enough to do anything with”

“Where I put things, or at least where I thought I put them”

“Useless tidbits of information like the names of the four major ice ages in Europe, the names of my girlfriends in  grade school”

I wonder why I can’t find things, things that I put somewhere safe.  There must be a place in this house that is chock-full of items that I’ve not been able to locate.  Where did I put that sharpening stone or that yarn needle?  The brain has fortunately gifted me with the phrase, “It will turn up.”   While I am waiting, we have no knives that can cut more than soft butter.

I used to be able to name the countries in Africa along with their capitals, major economic activities and the names of their leaders.  Today?   I am having trouble with locating Arkansas, let alone Zimbabwe.

Today I am wondering how those memories that I still have color so much of the new stuff that comes in through my senses, mediates my choices.  I still prefer to use a pen and paper calendar rather than my phone to record appointments and dates.  Memories of working so hard on my penmanship are very strong.  Writing strengthens memories.  My muscle memory is off, too, so typing in dates can be on the wild side, given my propensity to make errors.

And what about people?  Today I saw a photo on the internet.  Wasn’t it only a moment ago that she was the little girl next door who was my “mother’s helper?”  Now she is a grandmother.   But no matter, those memories of that child are so strong that I can call them up at will.  I can hear her 8-year-old voice and remember so clearly making Christmas ornaments with her.  She will always be that little girl.

I have wonderful stories, fragments of long ago.   The little boy playing hide-and-seek and singing a song from “Sesame Street” and the sweet little girl, so happy and kind, greeting me with joy every morning.  Memories of my babies that are only mine; the children were there but didn’t have the perspective to capture those moments as I did.  No matter that they have families of their own, there is always that place in my mind that keeps them as they were, as I saw them.  Without trying, I can hold their little bodies in my arms again, drink in the joy of young innocence.

And there is my grandmother, sitting in the kitchen, cutting out pieces of fabric to make a coverlet or my Dad, his deep voice calling us to sing with him.  And Mom, hanging the wash out on the line, a determined look on her face as she carefully places the pins.  They remain there in those spaces in my head as living moments

I am 17. I can see Frankie Piccione running behind us while our senior picture was taken in front of the Capitol in Washington D.C.  He appears twice, once on each side of the group.    We were only a few months away from graduation and all 50 of us were being given a firsthand experience of that which we had learned in Mr. Moore’s social studies class.  We toured the capitol, met our legislators, sat in the gallery of the House of Representatives and celebrated the process enshrined in our constitution and its history.  I still can resurrect the pride and reverence I felt at the Lincoln and Hamilton Memorials, at Arlington and at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

I prefer that image to the one that came over the ether on Jan. 6,  when thugs invaded the symbol and the heart of our democracy, driven by a concerted plan to disseminate lies about the election.

What motivated those felons who stormed the capitol, beat a policeman with an American Flag, threatened the lives of the Vice President and members of Congress, defecating in the hallways of the center of our government, vandalizing, desecrating both the symbol and the process of the U.S. and leaving five dead?

According to those who are knowledgeable about such things, there is a second brain that communicates with the one in our heads.  It is a thin double layer of neurons that line the gastrointestinal tract.   Charged with the processes of digestion this brain has a two-way connection upstairs.  What goes on between your mouth and your bottom talks with your head.

Is it possible that indigestion of a certain kind will motivate a louder voice from the alimentary canal, say from listening to and believing BS that masquerades as truth?  Perhaps, for the insurrectionists, a dietary change should have been in order or dose or two of Pepto might have been in order.