the things we lose along the way

memories and language and meaning

snowstorm in tarrytown, 2021, on film (kodak ektar-100)

greetings, greetings to you, dear reader.

it feels like spring is almost here this week in my rural valley. it’s supposed to get up to 50ºF on saturday! it will be cloudly then, as it will be this whole week, reminding me that we are still in the midst of winter.

i’ve been spending this week thinking about the things we lose as we grow and change as people on this earth. in specific, our memories and our ways of expressing the world around us.

i ran into a post somewhere on the internet that was talking about words not in common use, namely the word “apricity,” which means “the feeling of the sun’s warmth when it’s cold out.” i then dove deep into words that aren’t in common use today, notably nature-related words out of sheer fascination and appetite. (i’ve listed those i found below in the footnotes¹, in addition to a suggested book authored by robert macfarlane about lost words²).

losing words feels sacriligeous. but it happens. and as someone who has lived (and is living) with chronic PTSD, the connection between losing language and losing memory are intertwined. my memory doesn’t work the way “most people” think memory is supposed to work. a good deal of my personal work today is on this. the way i remember many things from my life is in fragments, in fits and starts, disconnected from any ancillary details. to put those memories in a narrative form takes immense effort. to find the words to do so is like crafting an entire ship out of only the grains of sand i’ve found on a beach. to create the illusion of a timeline of my life, childhood onward, takes imagination, as there are oftentimes more questions than i have answers for. ³

we all experience memory loss, though.

lisa genova writes in remember: the science of memory and the art of forgetting that there is an art to memory, that memory is dependent on meaning, emotion, sleep, stress, and context. and depending on which levers a memory pulls of meaning, emotion, sleep, stress, and context, we may always “remember” it or immediately “forget” it.

the idea of the memories we have and the words we use to describe it and how those two concepts change over time is something i return to when i’m on the brink of a shift in my life. and this is no exception for the past twelve months of my life. a year ago this month, i started floating the idea of traveling around the country in a truck camper. six months later, i was on the road.

i wrote in a journal at the start of my note-taking for this particular adventure:

i’ve never been one to enjoy journaling — moreso because of the embarrassment and shame i often felt when re-reading previous entries — i’ve lacked compassion for my younger self in the past, namely, i think, due to the fact that i’ve lived in survival mode for most of my life and really didn’t like myself.

i want to remember, in particular, the details around packing and leaving. the things that went right (and serendipitously “wrong”), the things i will and won’t miss about this little village on the Hudson, the scents and scenes of the last 3 years.

but of note here, i wrote:

i have a little bit of fear, too, that i’ll have gaps in my memory for this experience — i know our memories change as time goes on, and details start to slip and slide, as we gather new chapters of experience. but i want to have some account of it all and to become less afraid of the voice i want to use to change (my corner of) the world.

wow, how younger sara was looking out for older sara.

in unearthing the boxes of my childhood that i had to organize in order to shove them in the corner of a closet in my apartment, i made the profound realization that i kept journals during most of the dramatic shifts in my life: studying abroad in germany and south africa, my parents divorce, moving to new york for college, my grandfather passing away. and that with the work i’ve done to create a narrative around my life and those changes, the shame has lifted on my younger self. i now read those entries with compassion and understanding.

i wrote over 80,000 words in my journal for the first drive around the US. i’m sure there are many things that i’ve forgotten. but for the day when i want to dive back into those memories, a record is on my desk. an overpowering shift began during that particular adventure. and the core sense of self i hold from each lesson informs who i am today. every memory does.

(if you’re looking for a dive back into the dispatches, you can find a few summations of those memories, like my last dispatch of july 2021 when i felt like i was losing my mind and my body. my dispatches from north dakota and south dakota and idaho. camping in mount rainier national park and olympic national park and yosemite national park. the 10,000th mile.)

may our memories be profound and mild. may we honor the changing days and changing selves that we encounter with our authentic selves. may we hope for stories that bring us home to our concentric circles. may we write and share them. may we make memories, may we create language, and may we create meaning with others and release them without expectation.

onward,

sara

p.s. next week i’ll be sending out a longer form essay on where we get our water. this is a bit of a departure from my usual structure of dispatch but it’s a topic that i’m passionate about, so if this ISN’T up your alley, you’re welcome to skip reading it! i’ll return to my semi-regular formatting the following week. to catch up on the other essays i’ve written, you can head here.

1. subnivean: occurring under the snow, primaveral: of or relating to early spring, brutal: of or relating to occurring in winter, estivation: the act of passing the summer, frondescence: the time at which species of plants unfold their leaves, hyemation: the act of passing the winter, moonglade: the track of moonlight on the water, glade: an open space in the forest AND a clear or bright space in the sky, ombrophilous: rain-loving, ombrophobus: rain-shunning, petrichor: the earthy smell after rain, psithurism: the sound of rustling leaves, spoondrift: a showery sprinkling of seawater or fine spray swept from the tops of the waves, cosmognosis: the imaginary " general knowledge" or instinct to which the migrations of birds have been attributed, land blink: a peculiar atmospheric glow observed in the arctic regions on approaching land covered with snow (more yellow than ice-blink), agglomerate: to form or collect into a rounded mass, plenilunary: of or pertaining to the full moon, thalassic: of or relating to seas or oceans, brume: fog or mist, peristeronic: of or pertaining to pigeons, glin: a hazy appearance on the horizon at sea to indicate the approach of foul weather, freshet: a sudden overflow of a stream resulting from a heavy rain or a thaw, lychnidiate: giving out light or phosphorescent, moonblink: a temporary evening blindness said to be occasioned by sleeping in the moonshine in tropical climates, nemophila: love of the woods or fondness for a woodland life., renidification: the act of rebuilding a nest, mizzle: to rain in very fine drops (also: to yield, succumb; to become tipsy; to run off; to overcome confuse, mentally entangle), pogonip: a dense winter fog containing ice particles

and a few non-nature words: onism: the awareness of how little of the world you'll experience, cicatrize: to find healing by the process of forming scars, sonder: the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as yours., pronoia: the belief that the universe is conspiring in your favor

2. Robert MacFarlane’s The Lost Words and his corollary piece for Orion Magazine called “Landspeak”

3. to read more about the personal experience of CPTSD, i recommend Lisa Marie Basile’s “Tides of Time”