OPINION

STEVE STRAESSLE: Engram

The Strenuous Life

He read the word and studied it. Was it familiar? It sounded like a poet's tool, an artist's concept. Maybe it lingered in those old vocabulary books he had loved in school, the ones that passed off new words as points on a quiz. He had known better even when he was a kid. Words are power. Words possess magic to uplift or destroy, to build or condemn. Assigning points to words offended him even then.

He looked it up in the massive dictionary in the other room. The word seemed too important to be housed in bytes transmitted across fiber optic cable. Likely, the word lived somewhere in that old hundred-pound dictionary where it waited for fingers to touch the page it occupied, to search for its meaning. There it is: A memory trace. A hypothetical permanent change in the brain accounting for the existence of memories. Where memories are stored.

As if a memory could be housed in one place. A memory travels like wisps of clouds on a jet stream, meandering through the lives it's touched, dropping like confetti in the parade of people who share in it. Memories don't sit still in one spot, he knew. Memories journey until they come back home to where it all started.

Scientists have tried to explain the existence of memories and coined the term engram to hold them down like strings on colored balloons. Events leave a trail on the mind, they say. Relationships make an imprint. Songs and smells, voices and feelings all leave dusty fingerprints on the brain. Maybe so.

He thought back to his earliest memories in kindergarten and that denim shirt with a sunrise embroidered on back. Man, that was his favorite shirt. He thought about the Hi-C served in conical paper cups and the saltine crackers to go with it. That was our school snack? He remembered the tornado slide outside, and catching frogs, stuffing them in his shirt to make the other kids laugh.

He touched his head. Is this where my engram lies? Is there a spot he could massage, coaxing more memories to squeeze through? He thought about grade school and Sister Eileen's laughter. He remembered the playground and slicing his hand on a rusted chain-link fence. He laughed at the thought of the friends he met there, the ones he still checks in with every Sunday, the ones he still loves like brothers and sisters.

What happens if he bumps his engram too hard? Will it shake loose and cause memories to tumble into reality? Will he suddenly think of rolling down the windows, turning the radio up loud, grabbing sunglasses, only to remember he was driving a station wagon? Will memories of relationships never meant to be consecrated pour forth? Definitely, he'll think of his former teachers. He always does.

He'll think of the pretty blonde who laughed so easily, the one who still makes people feel so important when she's with them. The one who said yes to him and made him feel alive. He won't think of their wedding, he knew. Instead, he'd think of the simple times, the times where even the brush of her hand ignited his senses.

Maybe it'll be the birth of his first child that pours forth and how he leaned far out of the hospital window to get a photo of his baby's first sunrise. Oh, how he allowed that newborn to squeeze his thumb, all the while watching a glint of the rising sun inch across the floor until it rested on those little fingers, on those clasped hands, making him feel the very power of God.

He'll think of his career and the power of individuality brought together in common purpose like an unstoppable locomotive. Praising independence, allowing the vulnerability of group work, knowing that the greatest heights are reached precisely that way.

He'll think of all his children. He'll think of the older ones who have started their own lives, the younger ones still finding who they are, and then he'll think of the one he and his wife waited for, even though they didn't know they were. He often pauses each day to think of his children anyway. He'll remember their birthday parties, athletic events, but most of all just the time around the table.

Not the fireworks, not the awards, not even the vacations or those life-changing events. Just the beautiful daily conversations that were nothing extraordinary except to those who were there, those in the family.

Finally, he closed the big dictionary. The good memories invigorated him, the bad ones shaped him. Those monumental times that whispered so quietly in his present thoughts and actions never left--they simply grew, as did he.

Memories are not stored, are not kept under lock and key until ready to be unleashed. Memories travel, leaving their own contrails on the minds of the people who took part. They'll come back, whispering along the bent airwaves of a song, the tinted molecules of a smell, the fire erupting from touching a loved one's skin.

They're not housed within one beautiful word. They're meant to roam.

And when this is all over, our memories will shine light on what should be.

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Steve Straessle, whose column appears every other Saturday, is the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys. You can reach him at [email protected].

Editorial on 04/04/2020

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