May 2008 - Janelle's Blog

She Could Never Forget

What if you could remember every day of your life, recalling exact dates and events? That sounds impossible, but it really did happen. Jill Price has been in the news lately on television shows like CNN and Oprah promoting her new book, The Woman Who Can't Forget. She has a memory condition called "hyperthymestic syndrome," which has caused her to recall memories of the details of what she has done every day since she was fourteen years old. With no effort on her part, she cannot stop the flood of memories.

My Early Childhood

I recalled my earliest childhood memory. I thought I was much older, but my mother told me I was almost three. In preparation for my birthday, without consulting each other, my parents each bought me identical dolls. Strangely, I could remember reasoning how I did not want to hurt either of their feelings by rejecting one of the dolls. So, I named them Sally and Sunday Sally. My everyday doll was Sally, who I dragged around everywhere. After a while she looked a little scuffed and crumpled, but she was always there when I needed her.

Time Pressures

With the growing pressures of life, time seems to be our most precious commodity. Time slips out of our fingers daily as we try to hurry and get things done. Reading should not be a luxury, but rather a pleasurable island of escape in our busy schedules.

If reading can time-travel you to worlds in which you do not live and short-cut your learning process over multiple fields of interest, then you might say reading saves you time.

Which Way to the Nearest Bookstore?

While my airline flight was laid over in Boston a few weeks ago, I shopped at one of my favorite stores, Levengers, that sells writing supplies. Levengers has every high-quality writer's aid you can imagine. As I slowly walked the aisles of the store, I picked up a book called The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life
by Steve Leveen. At last, a book on how to read a book! What a great idea. Or it could have been titled, A Book on How to Get You to Buy Another Book. I was drawn to it like the moth to the flame.

My husband, Neal, and I were running errands last Saturday mid-morning at a nearby mall when I noticed my watch was stuck on 7:20. I had purchased the watch at Chico's, a women's clothing store, known for its stylish, but inexpensive clothing and jewelry.

A clerk at the mall gave us what sounded like easy directions to a store where we could get a battery.

"I think if we walk a little further," I said, "we'll find the Fix-it Shop for my watch." We had been coming to this North Dallas mall for eight years and neither of us had ever heard of the store.

On the flight descent into NYC, I longingly looked out the window in the direction of the ghost Twin Towers. My heart always hurts a bit when I see the obvious absence of the great landmarks of NYC. New York has been a favorite city of mine for some time now. I was introduced to it for the first time a few weeks before 9-11, when it was in its splendor.

I remember stepping out of my hotel and hearing the swooshing sounds of bus brakes squealing, taxis honking, and distant noises of commerce blending into a cadence of activity. It is a sound of energy that I still drink in every time I travel to NYC.