A friend of mine told me about turn around twice in an email and I got a real chuckle out of it. We were not in high school at the same time in our hometown, but we sure have a lot in common otherwise. It surprises me how much we think alike and we have never met face to face.
Mary and I got acquainted when she bought the book I wrote about our home town. We started emailing about the book and she started to relay stories of when she grew up there. The long distance friendship started from that point and now we not only email we visit on the phone every other day and sometimes every evening.
Mary is the big sister I never had. If we had been sisters I’m not sure who would have been the wild child. But I am pretty sure it would have been Mary. I have a feeling she did her share of stirring up trouble when she was in school, because she is still stirring things up now.
I have days when I turn around and wonder if I should do one chore or the other or just forget them both and sit down and read. It seems now I am retired it is easy to think I can do it later or tomorrow instead of deciding to do it now.
Now it is easier to decide to read or sit down and color a new picture with the Prisma color pencils than do whatever is staring me in the face. Or do I want to work on one of the 12 stories that are always laying here on the desk, and saved in the computer, to be finished for the Messenger?
Sometimes I walk into a room and wonder what I came in there for and turn around several times looking at the room trying to remember what it was I needed to do. After I stand there for a few minutes with nothing coming to mind as to why I am in that room I remember what my Grandmother used to make me do.
Even when I was very young I would forget why I went into a room. If it happened when I was with my Grandmother, she would send me back to the room I came from. She said I would remember if I went back to where I’d had the thought. And I was always surprised that it worked and the thought came back to me.
I have no idea what the turn around and go back did to the mind unless it was like a reset button on the computer and you remembered the thought when you were back where you started. Most of the time that trick still works for me but there are times it doesn’t.
When it doesn’t work I just have to go on with the day. It must take longer for the brain to reset. Is it the 71 years of living that makes it take longer to sort through all those memories in my brain to get to the one thought I just had? But my brain will eventually find the reason or thought if I just do something else.
Every time I have thought about the Turn around Twice, I remember my Cocker Spaniels. Every once in awhile when they went to their bed they would make two turns in one direction and sometimes turn and go one time in the other direction before they would lay down.
What was their brain telling them when they were doing that? Was it like mine when I am trying to decide which task to work on? Were they trying to decide if they wanted to face one direction or turn around and lay the other way? Whatever it was, their brain finally worked it out. It sure was cute when they were turning around several times before they lay down.
At least when I am writing and I know I want to get a certain thought across but then I loose it, all I have to do is save the story and then come back to it later and the thought will come back to me. Sometimes the thought will come to me in the night and I write it down on a pad by the bed so I don’t forget it again.
So if any of my readers have the problem of forgetting why you came into a room or any thought you loose on the way to do a task, don’t worry about it. It is perfectly normal at any age but especially as we get a little older. Just turn around and do something else and then it will come back to you. To contact Sandy; [email protected]
