Tag: remembering

The Sunday Dawdler 3-5-23 The Likeness of Souls

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion...6 Comments

Rory asks more interesting questions of us today. I’m in …

Before I start, I want to express my delight in Rory’s use of snail images. This comes from an impactful book I read called, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. It remains a personal favorite for its beautiful investigation of an unseen and rarely explored part of our natural world. All you fellow “nature nuts” might enjoy it as much as I.

How long will you be remembered for once you are no more?

During an introspective investigation I had many years ago, I came to the conclusion that those who involve themselves with children have a subliminal interest in being remembered. I am delighted when I reconnect with adults who I knew as kids, and they share a memory of our time together. If they end up passing on ‘lessons learned’ from me to their own children, my impact ‘lives’ on…
Recently, at a ‘wake’ for a deceased former neighbor, I stood in line waiting for my turn to offer my condolences to her grown children. Each person ahead of me in turn embraced the family and tears flowed freely. When it was my turn, the eldest daughter smiled, and we hugged. She’d only been sobbing all the while I had waited. Her comment, accompanied by twinkling eyes, was that she and her siblings had just been reminiscing about making Christmas Cookie Houses with me. I added my own memories of Halloweens we had shared from our side-by-side front porches. The grins and giggles continued as I addressed her brother and younger sister down the line. My heart has yet to recover from that scene. Their smiling faces during that terribly sad gathering would have pleased their mother who was the reason for all of us being there.
I can’t imagine a better way to impact people while being remembered. ❤

Considering that only 5% of the world’s oceans have been explored and charted, what do you think lurks in our world’s hidden and unknown waters?

I really can’t imagine what we may find. From recent reports, there’s increasing evidence of “life” (even in bacterial form) being discovered in what scientists ‘assumed’ to be totally inhospitable conditions in our oceans. To quote Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”
That alone is a mind-blowing yet comforting truth.

Are soul mates a real thing?

I’ve never come fully to terms with what that phrase means. Does the “mates” part mean compatible ‘marriage’ partners?
I think, on the “soul” part of humans, IMHO …we are the most intrinsically compatible already. [I use the term “souls” a lot in posts for the ‘oneness’ it conveys.]
But as the term “soul mate” is commonly used to describe a higher level of ‘alikeness’ that we can find in a person, I’d say “yes”.
We can find people with strikingly similar appearances, and we can find people with similar temperaments, experiences, and viewpoints. I believe that mathematically there are simply a finite number of combinations of those physical, emotional, and external things, so near ‘matches’ happen. We who consider likeness-on any plane- a connection, have more ‘soul mates’ than others. 😉

https://earthlycomforts.uk/2023/03/05/a-wild-aloha-to-you-24/

Birding with My Granddaughter

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion..., Nature Knowledge4 Comments

2651594282_ef987cc879_bThe human brain is a fascinating subject. I can’t get too much information about what scientists are finding to be “the way we learn and remember”. As an early childhood educator, the little “sponges” around me have me in awe.

I remember showing my daughter her first glimpse of a butterfly in the wild. She was about 18 months old and quite a chatterbox. She returned to the same spot…same flower, the next day and asked, “Butterfly?”. My first parental reaction was, “Wow! I have a genius on my hands!” Then the truth grabbed me. Of course she’d think about butterflies in that spot. That’s the only place her brain has ever witnessed one.

Adults have so many more experiences and, therefore, filter and connect images and ideas in a “wasteful” way. We have to cast off some of our information in order to keep a tidy collection. Kids are that wonderful “clean slate” that we adore. It’s no wonder that kids can learn multiple languages far more easily than adults. They have no competing categories or files in their brains to interfere with their memorization efforts.

Keeping this in mind, I have tried to make up little games with my granddaughter in order to teach her to notice and identify birds by their songs. I must have done this instinctively with my day care babies because I was stopped in the grocery store by a few parents and grandparents who pointed the “blame” for their nature walk interruptions on me.

“He just froze and said, Hear that Grandma? That’s Mr. Blue Jay singing.”

“She kept shushing me as we walked so she could listen for the birds.”

I just love hearing such “complaints”!

As for my granddaughter and me, we make up our own little phrases for familiar bird songs. I don’t know if there are different bird dialects but sometimes the professional translations just don’t fit the sounds that we hear. The only one that seems universal is the Chickadee. “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee” is our translation too…but we also know there is a sound that Chickadees make other than their name. We think it says “JEAN-nee”.

Eastern Phoebes are our favorite. Their first part sounds something like “Phoebe…Phoebe” but it ends with “She DID it!”.  At least that is our own label and it always makes us laugh.

When we look through books, I will point out the birds and reminder her of our own game and the sounds. Recently, I pointed out a Nuthatch in a book and reminded her of that bird who’s always laughing at us from the trees.

I cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful world we can open up to kids when we teach them to listen and notice what too many adults have no time for.

Related articles

Sharing Happiness

On By Susan St.PierreIn Sideshows4 Comments

Why do we remember some things and not everything?

Except for a few unique individuals, most people “weed out” their memories. We don’t remember what the weather was on a specific day unless it connects to another saved memory. For example, we may remember that it rained on the 4th of July because we spent that weekend feeling miserable living in a tent. Special events are remembered and just what we consider a “special” event can vary greatly. If you are a pessimist by nature, your memory of that soggy 4th of July would be about the miserable weather and the plans unrealized. The optimist may well remember the same event but have very different feelings. The way the coffee tasted better or the fact that the rain kept your family inside where they played games or talked more than they may have if outdoor pleasures were available.

What we “choose” to remember says so much about who we are. Whether our memories are primarily pleasant or not,  says more about our attitudes and less about what actually happened.

The whole of this discussion comes down to our personal capacity to experience happiness. A subject that really fascinates me.

Can we learn to be happy?

It sounds so simple, but in my opinion, happiness is relishing ordinary things and remembering them positively.

My Aunt was surprised at a special memory I had of her reading her favorite poem to me when I was a kid. (The Raggedy Man)

I can picture her on a bed where I was tucked in cozily beside her. I was looking out of the window as I listened to her.  I still remember the farm scene and can hear her soft voice. The love and appreciation she had for those written words filled the room.

My mother read to us when we were kids. She loved what she read and the stories and moments stay with me as well. They are among my calm happy memories which I choose to visit much more often than any other kind. Both my parents laughed readily and often.  🙂

I guess what I am trying to say is to share yourself with kids, as often as you can. Show passion for what you love freely and turn every moment possible into a happy memory for yourself and those around you. Don’t ever forget to laugh!