Memory is a strange hotel. Each memory is a vignette to visit: some with the sheets still warm, some with the windows stuck shut, some with the kind of mess you make when you’re not sure whether you’re coming or going. I’ve played the maid more times than I can remember, care to count.
My amnesiac brain lurches along a timeline that refuses to stay in order. It’s morning again—I’m sure of that much. But what is this morning after? Sometimes I wake up, make tea, and only halfway through realize that I have no idea what day it is. By the time I piece it together—I’ve partially forgotten the pattern.
I leave notes for myself—sticky reminders , scribbles in the margins of books. But these small accumulations of words frequently tie to something that’s a mystery.
The only way forward is to keep stitching together the past and the present, fate and free will, all tangled up in the daily wrestling match inside my head. I can’t help but obsess over the cracks in my own thinking.
So I do what I can: grab hold of whatever destiny I can find and get to work—grasp this bit of control—even if it’s just making the bed or picking one of my many knitting projects up from from my bed, on the floor.
So anytime there's a new year, a new round of medical tests, or another day without speaking to a friend— it's an opportunity for me to don my blue maid’s dress, drape the apron over my neck, and clean the corners of my brain.
This requires living in both the chaos and the order. It means admitting I’m both guest and staff, and that sometimes the only way forward is to pick up the keys and see what’s behind the next door.
