With each pen stroke I made to the paper, my memories emptied themselves into beautiful flowery words. Each memory telling a story off my life. I was running out of ink and paper, I resorted to the crayons I found under the chair and wrote on the walls. Memories of childhood, of going to the little grocery store for my mom and the clerk always gave me a Twinkie because she thought I was such a good girl to do this nice thing for my mom. I wrote I wrote about the time a bee flew into our car and my sister freaking out…this first time I thought about being afraid of bees and bugs was a normal thing. For some reason I couldn’t hold onto my memories.
My kitchen walls were filled with all the recipes I’ve collected in my mind and memory. Recipes I made from memory. Muffins, donuts, pancakes, veggie soup, avocado bliss, chicken and rice, pesto encrusted salmon all my go to recipes were written on the walls with the crayons I found.
As the crayons and rooms were spent and filled, I found other things to write with and more areas to write on. I used some sharpees and wrote on the garage floor about all the places I’ve ever traveled to from memory. Writing each one out in detail and seeing where I’ve been seemed to be the most freeing exercise in futility I’ve ever done. I stood back and walked from room to room looking at all I had written…reliving each moment in memory.
As I wrote reach memory out, my mind emptied itself of all the clutter I collected over the 55 years of my life. But I could no longer remember these memories as they were put down on paper (walls, post-it’s, napkins, tables, floors, shower curtains, etc). My mind was empty. It was like a data dump from a computer to a flash drive. I had no memory left, my mind had to be reformatted to accept and build new memories. I thought to myself “Who’s minding my mind?
That’s when it happened.
My alarm went off.
I sat up to write out this strange dream/nightmare. I wrote in detail which is why I’m sharing this here. I kept thinking that it was only a dream, but it was also a wake up call. Then, as usual, for me at least, I asked myself questions about the dream and about how it related to my life as it is now.
“Do Alzheimer’s patients feel like this when they are losing their memories? Where do their memories go? Do patients know they are losing their memories?” I don’t know the answers to these questions…but it would prove an interesting study. No…I don’t have memory issues, but in my dream I felt compelled to write everything out. If you looked at my computer monitor, I have sticky notes all around it. My office door is arrayed with sticky notes as is my refrigerator, my pantry, and my front door. All a sign of a busy life.
“What’s the moral of this story?”
- Keep remembering the moments in your life but try not to get stuck on in the past.
- Write them out if you need to and read them. Share these memories with your children and grandchildren.
- Connect or reconnect with family and friends.
- Protect your memory.
- Consider the mindful supplements: Ginko Biloba, Creatine, Bacopa Monnieri,Rhodiola Rosea, S-Adenosyl Methionine (SAME), Coconut oil, fish oil, reversatrol, green tea, Acetyl-L-Carnitine, Phosphatidylserine
Minding your mind also includes making better food choices and eliminating those foods that don’t provide nutritional benefits but robs your body of necessary nutrients to support a vibrant quality of life.
We’ve been told that fat is a culprit and we should eliminate it from our diets but our gray matter which holds our memories is made up of fat and without the right amount of fat we lose that elasticity and our memories will begin to slip at an earlier age.
While dairy is a big allergy culprit that is being eliminated from diets across the board. It’s part of the Big 4 (dairy, eggs, sugar, grain) we are suggested to remove from our diets that might improve our life. Well, dairy is one of those food groups that is somewhat difficult to remove if you don’t have a food allergy to it. But there are all sorts of dairy alternatives to choose from. Alternative cheeses are great if you want to ingest all sorts of chemicals which are a detriment to our health.
Being Italian and having to eliminate cheese is like a fish giving up water. I have tried to find good alternatives to ricotta cheese that didn’t have cashews, potatoes, or starches…and something that’s a good raw alternative! They don’t exist.
So I went into my memory and came up with my own Macadamia “Ricotta” Cheese.
Slightly wet ricotta cheese
Macadamia “Ricotta” Cheese
- 1 cup organic raw macadamia nuts, water soaked overnight in a covered container
- 1/4 cup full fat coconut milk, no additives or emulsifiers
- 1 clove garlic, minced and let to sit for 10 minutes to activate the alicin.
- 1/4 teaspoon Himalayan salt
- 1 teaspoon basil, oregano, Italian seasoning (optional)
In a nutribullet or high powered blender, purée all the ingredients. Adding a teaspoon of water or more if necessary to make the mixture resemble ricotta cheese. Pour into a container and use as a dip or use as a component of a raw zucchini lasagne.
Makes 1 cup ricotta cheese.
Minding our mind and holding onto our memories is up to each of us. We make choices every day that will either keep our memories intact or make them disappear into nothingness.
Choose wisely and protect those memories!
