It's Where The Wind Blows...

The human brain is by far, the most sophisticated computer ever created. It is able to copy, right, over right files, download, access information, learn, grow and store memories that can span over one's entire lifetime.

Safety features of that incredible organic computer allow it to shut certain memory storage areas down if it feels that those memories can or will possibly cause the body harm. Maybe this is also a short circuit fail safe device which keeps the memory intact but yet stores it safe in some obscure region of the brain, never to be played again by the act of remembrance.

In the female, the human brain has the ability and knowledge, from birth, to recreate human life. Argue me this? Sure, then I will have to ask you how such a life is formed inside of another life form, the body's own defense system shutting down while the embryo grows, thus stopping the mother's own immune system from sensing the embryo as a parasite inside the mother, thus killing it off. So, indeed, all of this is commanded by the brain. Running daily diagnostic of the body as a whole, even while we sleep.

I like to think of the brain as a large warehouse, filled with hundreds if not thousands of doors. Some locked, some hidden from the light of thought, stuck in the back, covered in dust, wanting never to be found. Inside those doors are where we store memories or certain feeds of information. And it amazes me how sounds, smells or some random photo accesses those doors, opening the memory where those items were fist experienced.

A weeping willow tree first shooting its leaves forth in the spring, remind me of Easter at my Grandma Della's yard. A certain type of pine smell, reminds me of a caroler candle my mom had since god only knows when, but we only seen and smelled its fragrance at Christmas.

Once the willow is seen every spring, that memory comes back. When I am somewhere and the odor of that candle captures my attention, I think of my mom's candle. Keys, if you will. Keys that open those thousands of doors that are hidden deep with-in my brain. Doors kept with a fail safe, hopefully preserving my memories for the remainder of my life.

Sometimes we smell just a hint of a familiar fragrance or hear maybe one or two notes of a song. "I know that", we say and wreck our minds the whole day trying to recall the name or the song or the place or thing we associate the smell with. Sometimes we can't figure it out and it ends in frustration, other times a friend may be the one who spent time on google looking up four or five words to let me know that a long forgotten song that I loved, although not knowing the name of it, was Strawberry Letter 22. Years of me hearing a few bars of it but never catching the words, thus never knowing the name of it...ending in frustration.

Sometimes those doors spring open or the keys are lost or forgotten and the contents behind the doors are lost forever. Such as the case for those who have dementia or alzheimer's. Keys lost or the owners forgotten ability to access the doors of the mind. The brains fail safe shutting down, memories lost forever.

In any case, we depend on those things to help us access long forgotten memories and where would we be without those? A man is the sum of his memories, all that we were, are and will become are based upon what we remember, so if we are not able to remember, what will we then become?

As I browse my warehouse...the one in my mind and not the one upstairs in the attic, I have found so many doors long shut and appears their hinges have even been welded tight to prevent my access to what lies behind them.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to find the key that will allow me to open any of them. But desperate to unlock each one and peek to see what memories lie inside, long covered in mental dust, forgotten.

I need to know what is in them. I need to know why I hate the thought of my birthday and no, it has nothing to do with me growing old. Although I am ever more mindful of that now that I ever have been.

I need to know why I have hated the Christmas season. Why I wish it would become illegal to celebrate, being just two more days in December just like all the other days. But knowing how much money people make at that time of the year form buying the perfect gift for someone who can't be satisfied, it will never be outlawed.

There is a reason why I hate those days in particular. There must be some hidden memory that my mind has associated the hatred for these days with. I must know what that is so I can deal with it, find peace and move on. And yes, maybe letting those few who care for me find peace as well, able now to celebrate a holiday with them and them for me with joy as it was meant to be.

One song in particular, 10CC's "I'm not in Love", is one such song that stirs or jars a string of memory in me. The music, not the lyrics, has an effect on me and always has had. The first chorus part of the song, with the instrumental, hints of a hidden memory somewhere in my mental warehouse and one that I am unable to open. No matter how hard I try to associate that with any one thing, it eludes me, escapes me.

As Khan said in Star Trek II, "He task me and I shall have him, I will chase him round the moons of Nibia, around the Mailstrom Nebula and round perdition's flames before I give it up." I need to know what is hidden, the answers to all my questions may lie inside those doors long since shut tight.

But what if, what if those doors were permanently closed for a reason? The self preservation, fail safe mechanism I spoke of earlier? What if there is some traumatic memory lying inside that I so desperately need to keep shut and forgotten. If the door is open, will it cause so much mental anguish for me that I may never recover? Get really pissed at someone for doing me such an incredible injustice that I seek to do them bodily harm in retaliation? The answers to these questions will only come when the keys are found. When the music is associated with the memory. When that dam door is open and I can once again live whatever that was that caused my system to lock it down, shut it off and keep it from me.

Wait! Isn't it my brain? My memories? My body? Shouldn't it be me who decides if those doors should remain closed or open? Should not I be the one who peeks inside, sorts through the mess and comes out clean? It is my brain and I own it so should it not obey me and provide the answer to the keys location? GIVE ME MY DAM KEYS!!!

What right does my brain have denying me access to my memories? Isn't it already messed up enough over the last 49 years that, we should both open the closets and clean them out together and maybe, just maybe, set things in proper order once again.

Our brains...grey matter organic computer. Ruler of the human body. Allowing me to think I am in charge of this fleshly container, but denying me access to all of its functions. Denying me the ability to heal myself and regenerate aging flesh. If we can create life, why can we not reverse the same?

Our brains...grey matter organic computer. Always tempting us to look for those doors it has hit from us. Drawing us to them, arousing curiosity but never allowing us to gain access knowing we can't live with something secret being hidden in plain view.

Until then, I will listen, carefully, over and over to the song. i will search random thought processes and access any bit of data I can from that aging grey matter dictator inside my skull. I will outsmart it and find the key, then those doors will be open and God have mercy on my brain on that day.

Random memories, thoughts, feelings, association with things hidden. Drawing me, tempting me, harassing me, arousing my inner curiosity. It's where dreams are kept. It's why we dream, why I dream. Downloading and filing memories while I sleep, vaporous clouds of memory solidified into a dream, one which fades as my eyes open.

Memories..hidden, covered up, long forgotten. It's where I wish to be, where I wish to explore. It's where answers come to light, revealing things to me my mind chose and or decided I need not know any longer.....It's where the wind blows.