Memories and Madagascar for Mama
Maire
In my class, Life Science, we, of
course, talk about life. What is it? Today, we debated HeLa cells, and thought
about organ transplants, as we focused on the components of a cell, mostly
talking about the cell membrane and the atoms that once made up carbon dioxide,
and water, now part of a living system that opens to allow more of such atoms
in different forms in or out through transport proteins. I don’t know this
stuff really well, but my job is more about teaching methods and ideas for
teaching this to elementary students. As I tell my students (one day to be
teachers), this isn’t about knowing the answers always, but about asking good
questions and fostering curiosity. Today I wondered with them about the
possibility of cloning your exact brain and then being able to map the pathways
of neurons in your brain and re-connect the same pathway in the cloned brain. I
know, it seems impossible, and there is part of me that can’t fathom those
millions of synapses could possibly hold the experiences of my life and my
identity, but what if…? Are you alive if your cells are alive?
Life keeps
changing. It is clichéd to say change is the only real constant. I think it is
more about survival. I often think of humans, and the complexity of the entire
system of life on earth from nuclear sun energy through trees to bugs to birds
to prey to meat to me, or some strange combo of moving molecules and release of
energy, that the mission is to survive. And, we could almost cast out rockets
to far-flung areas of the universe with bits of life to find suns and water and
carbon again, like the way so much pollen is blown to the wind, like the
helicopter seeds of mountain hemlock riding thermals over ridges and valleys to
distant rock cropping here, or maybe, someday, on another planet. How has
another planet dealt with excess carbon in the atmosphere?
I sold my
house in Utah. With the dissertation done, I guess it was time to close that
chapter. I will go out to walk in graduation this Spring and maybe I will get
one last hike up dry canyon to watch the sun set over the valley and to think
about the way life changes. It seems like a different life, and yet this is all
I have. They say memories get more distorted the more times you recall them.
Today, an
ex-girlfriend called me from a different life, part of the life before Utah, to
tell me that an amazing woman passed away. I couldn’t ever really speak with
her because I was ignorant of her language, but Andrea would translate for me
to the Mayor of Sahamadio, one of only a few female mayors of villages across
Madagascar. I still have the traditional clothes she made in the back of my
closet, never worn other than the day she had me try them on. I have never
wanted anyone to think I was mocking my experience there, but she was a force
to be reckoned with, as were most of the women I met in Madagascar. They were hard working and quick to laughter,
as I would mime my way through conversations, mostly smiles and goofing around.
They loved to come see me cook food as I made dinners for Andrea and me in her
small second story apartment over looking fields of rice. I haven’t thought
about that place in a long time. How you would climb through a window into the
kitchen, or we would sit on the porch and watch sunsets and wave to people
returning to work, waiting for the generator to be turned off, and the noises
of life quiet to nothing.
Those
memories, the memories I barely remember that come into you like a flood at
times so far removed, how could they ever map that experience and recreate without
being there, but here I am trying to bring you there right now. Perhaps all a
story does is connect you to memories. Today, I went with a realtor to see a
house, a woman I went to school with in high school, but don’t think I ever
met, but I did know her brother for whom I forgotten until she said his name
and images and events came forth. I didn’t know him well, but I can see a
silhouette of body and face and almost hear his voice again. I can only
remember a few real moments that happened…I think. Ends up my realtor had my
grandmother for her elementary school teacher. My grandmother was such an
incredible woman, lost to dementia as her memories were slowly stripped from
her. Dementia makes me question how a heaven could ever exist if you leave the
world without memories. Are those pathways restored to you? How can you lose
your experiences?
My realtor
showed me the house and the tenant in the house doesn’t want to move, but the
owners want to sell and I looked at the tenant and we both said, “We have met?”
But neither could know where. After looking at the house we tried a few
pathways to connection, rattled names of people, places we have lived, hobbies
we do, until she remembered. I used to have long hair. She was the friend of
the stylist who cut my ponytail off and she came to chat with her friend while
I sat in the chair. We barely know each other, but something stuck.
The second
summer I went to Madagascar I had long hair. That summer we didn’t travel far
from the village. I wanted to stay and just meet kids and get to know people
and not go to far-flung towns, but feel a part of a culture more than a
tourist. We stayed most of the time. I shot film for the Mayor as she protested
the state of the roads in her village.
Men from families were obliged to come from distant villages, ambovitra
they called them…I think. The men came from their villages with their shovels
to repair the roads, and they did. They came pouring out from the red-clay
trails in flip-flops and loosely hung clothing to dig out the washboard
trenches and washed away banks of roads so taxis and busses could easily access
their village.
The Mayor
toasted a drink to them as they lined up along roads and worked their shovels
like the fields of rice, the trellising and leveling of banks to gently carry
water through layers of paddies. The sculpted landscape was beautiful at times.
I enjoy this life away from everything. I keep finding it, or it finds me and I
find myself content. When Andrea called to tell me the Mayor had passed away,
my mind flooded with images of Madagascar. I think it has been nine years since
I was last there. And, to think, I almost was returning with a different
girlfriend. Maybe, it was me the place always wanted. There was a run-down
hotel in Fort Dauphin with the best chocolate mousse I have ever had and I
wanted to stay there forever. I wanted to open it up as surf hotel and eat
chocolate mousse.
And I
remember on the way back north, the train breaking down as the sun set in the
jungle and people emerged from the splayed banana leaves parting the darkness
with food in their hands, boiled eggs, rice, and of course bananas. I remember
the bananas and burned rice drink, but I don’t remember who I was back then
other than who I am right now, and yet a life separates those memories, a
decade of experiences and I couldn’t possibly be the same person.
Mama Maire
wasn’t old, but she slipped away in the night, and I wonder where her memories
went other than those we have. Perhaps it was diabetes, Andrea said they were
conjecturing, but didn’t know for sure. In Madagascar they have a ceremony
where they bring out the dead loved ones bones and dance with them. They drink
and dance and celebrate. I like that. I think it is a way to hold onto
memories.
