Hi hi! How is everyone today? Good? I hope the answer is good, if not, no worries, we will not be dealing in heavy content matter in this installment of my blog! That’s on purpose. I can’t do the hourly, world ending news today & the emotions that swirl up in the wake of their disturbance. Instead we’re going to be diving into the past, but like the shimmery, melancholic past, we are not here today to trauma bond.
A while back I invested in a book & its accompanying journal. The book in question is The Book Of Alchemy: A Creative Practice For An Inspired Life by Suleika Jaquad. The book is a series of journaling prompts collected & curated by Jaquad. Some are stories & anecdotes from friends of hers, some are strangers, but she has sewn them all together into an intriguing structure & bound many of them together with theming. The way that the prompts play out follows the structure of the respective author laying out their version of their entry to you, then you are met with the prompt following your read through so that you have an understanding of what something within that prompt might look like. I have been in the section of the book the focuses on prompts based in memory of late.
The crazy thing that I’m finding where this section of memory is concerned is just how much I actually remember, how much is buried just under the surface that goes unnoticed in my day to day recall, that just requires the slightest brushing off to expose the artifact underneath. Take for example the first prompt in the section, creating a memory web.
The example talks about passing the time while swimming laps, which as a former swimmer, I understand the monotony of. The author presents a second hand account of a method someone they once conversed with relayed to them where you pick a random year then create a memory web off of that. What events happened in that year, the broad strokes, then what details of that memory spur other memories or tangents to rise to the surface? I’ll give you an example using the year & web that I came up with.
The year that I picked was 2014. In that year I graduated college, I went on tour with Janelle Arthur, I released my EP Photographs, I went to LA for Spring Break with some friends, I was deep in the world of NAACA, playing showcases in the hope to get booked at colleges for events, those were the main broad strokes that I came up with from there. Let’s see where some of these led!
NAACA was honestly probably the most prevalent thread for me because I was traveling a lot for it. It brought up standing in a booth at a convention center in Myrtle Beach with Brian Waymire, my booking agent at the time. I remember standing there & Brett Young being represented in a booth across the way from me. At the time Brett hadn’t become a full fledged country star, but I had an old song of his, “In Love Alone,” saved to my music library at the time. Another memory. I’d stayed in a certain hotel that allowed dogs because I had brought Harvey with me. He & I frequently slipped away to the beach that weekend. He was afraid of the waves. Just writing about this actually just unlocked another part of that memory. The original hotel we’d book, that was listed as a “pet hotel” ended up canceling me because they hadn’t disclosed to me that they only allowed dogs under 40 lbs. That doesn’t work when you have a golden retriever. We ended up having to scramble to find a hotel last minute because they hadn’t informed us of this until we arrived to check in.
Off the NAACA tangent I also have Portland, Oregon. The band had been selected to play a showcase at NAACA West so James Black, Everett Bowles, Eric Coveney, Kyle May, & I made the flight up & played. We got picked up by an old family friend, Al Brandt, who was kind enough to lend us his truck for the weekend. Since we had a couple of days before our showcase & Brian didn’t have a booth at the convention hall, we went out to the Oregon coast for two days & a night. Along the way we listened to Eli Young Band, which the guys said they could definitely hear having influenced my songs at the time, & we made our way through The Beatles Love album that was released from their Cirque Du Soleil show in Vegas. It was concluded that the album is a great way to introduce non-Beatles fans to The Beatles. We stopped in Seaside at an internet cafe so Everett could do some schoolwork, took photos at Cannon Beach, went down to Tillamook & toured the cheese factory, then stayed the night in Newport, then made our way back to Portland the next day. It was there we discovered PB&Js Grilled (RIP) & Stumptown Coffee before it became a full blown nationwide thing.
It’s a very interesting practice & one that certainly surprised me with how deep my mind was willing to go & the wide amount of memory mining that was available along each vein of thought.
The next entry was about food & how certain foods can be favorites of ours because of the time & place attached to them. I think a great example of this use in our current culture is the online show “Last Meal,” where celebrities submit their ‘last meal’ & it’s collected or recreated from around the world & coursed out along with an interview. This then got Evan & I going through the practice of the things we think would be on each other’s last meals. Our lists were way too long for the show, & would definitely require some thinning out, but I realized many of the items involved were there because of the memories tied to them or the places & slots in time in which they exist. I’ll lay out a few of mine below just for fun, again, my list was way too long to appear on the show in its current form.
Charlie’s ‘Last Meal’ List (In No Particular Order):
Slumgullien from The Chowder Bowl in Newport, Oregon
El Volcan & Tamales from Three Borders Brunch & Grill in Los Angeles, California
The Welcome Cocktail from Corvino Supper Club in Kansas City, Missouri (RIP)
A Giant Pistachio Macaron from Lemonade in Los Angeles, California
Onigiri Flight from Kisser in Nashville, Tennessee
Green Chile Stew & Sopapillas from Frontier in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The Oregonian (with Duck) from PB&Js Grilled in Portland, Oregon (RIP)
Crown Rib with Cheesy Corn & Beans from Jack’s Stack in Kansas City, Missouri
Mulled Mead from Honeytree Meadery in Nashville, Tennessee
White Bean Tuna Salad on Rye from Dean & Deluca in New York City
A Golden Glow Mango from Yee’s Mangos in Kihei, Hawaii
Chef Brian Baxter’s Cheeseburger with Tots & a Coming Up Milhouse from The Patterson House in Nashville, TN (pre-move)
Hazelnut Affogato from The Grumpy Baker in Sydney, Australia
The Blaze (Kai Dama) from Silverlake Ramen only from the OG in Silverlake, California
Four Eggs Scrambled with American Cheese from a Diner
Cake Lady Cake
Sourdough Cecamariti from Rolf & Daughters in Nashville, Tennessee
Guava & Cream Cheese Pastelitos from Black Bean Deli in Winter Park, Florida
A Mexican Coke with Filipino Rum & Calmansi Juice
My Mom’s Chicken Noodle Soup
Shrimp Jalfrezi & Hummus from Cafe Rakka in Hendersonville, Tennessee
Turkey Club from Jersey Boys in Overland Park, Kansas (RIP)
Albacore Handroll from Sugarfish in Los Angeles, CA
Smoked Salmon Sandwich from Marrbury Smokehouse in Carsluith, Scotland
Veggie Burger with Steak Fries & Wasabi Mayo from PM in Nashville, TN (RIP)
Ooh La La from Henry’s in Acworth, Georgia
Just To Name A Few…
My final prompt from the last few days dealt with teachers. You were meant to choose a teacher & humanize them, write about them as a student of life themselves. What was their childhood like, their adolescence, their young adulthood? What do they like, what to they dislike, what struggles have they been through? Any & all specific details you can recall about their life, write it down. It is an interesting practice, not just for the memory aspect, but because it helps you to humanize people. Sub out someone else. Make it about your boss, your parents, your grandparents, that coworker you talk to frequently but wouldn’t say you’re close with. See how many strands of memory you can pull on that help further the recall, then step back & look at the person that you’ve illustrated with your knowings of their lives.
All of these prompts have been a really fascinating dive into memory for me this week & I’d encourage each of you to do the same every so often, not only to help with your recall, but to remind yourself of the life that you’ve lives & the value in creating such memories that you can venture back to when doing exercises like this. It helps to bring your own life into perspective. It makes you realize just how much you actually have done & how much those little attachments along the way have shaped who you are & the things that you enjoy. Again, just wanted to share something a little different this week in hopes that it helps you to escape a little bit of the doom & gloom of our present situation here on this floating rock called Earth.
As Always, Much Love To You All,
-C