HEDGEHOGWARTS
A Mixture of Truth, Fiction, Poetry, Art, Story, Wishes, Prayers, Spells and occasional ranty rants
Moving beyond the public health silo because we have to in order to build power.
An invitation to speculate, imagine and forgive
Sometime in the near future, I will forget writing these very words, in this very room, with this very pen. So there’s a story I’m writing right now that I am destined to forget. Which isn’t quite true. I will most likely remember this story if only because I’ve just made such a big deal of forgetting it. It’s one of the weird ways things work. But even though I will remember the story I won’t remember all of the words.
My point is that at least some of the detail will be lost. Hopefully, nothing too important but it’s inevitable. Even though I know it’s me writing the words, I’m realizing my reality is based on what I remember. What I forget are things I’ll make up to fill in the blanks. My socks might be white and not black. I might think I was depressed when I wasn’t. I might need a memory to serve a story I tell myself where I get all the glory or none of it. My memories may serve a need to blame, so what’s forgotten is my fault in a way even though it’s the truth.
I wonder what happens to those things forgotten; what happens to those details I’ve lived, what is the story of the things I don’t remember even though they are very real. It’s easy to say the things forgotten must not be important. But small adjustments can change results and outcome. Small adjustments can change reality. So right now, I’m writing something forgotten. It’s reality this instant but when does what I’ve forgotten simply stop existing?
Right now, someone who looks just like me, thinks, feels, senses things just like me; who has lived through every nuance of every experience; who has my name, my exact birthday, that birthmark, that scar, is the one writing this. It is the me who is not me whose story comes from details I’ve lived and forgotten.
The me who is not me is writing these words, this is true. These are the words as I write them in this moment; the words you read you hear in a voice that is not my own. The voice you hear as you read these words is your very own. So suddenly, the me who is not me is suddenly you, or rather since you will forget these words, it is the you who is not you I’m addressing. Because the you who is not you is suddenly me.
In a way, this changes everything. I exist in what I remember and I exist in what I’ve forgotten. I wrote these words in a voice that is yours, apparently. And yet the nature of being in this story means the line between us is suddenly blurred. Now this becomes your story to enter or exit, to remember or forget to make real, at least in this instant.
I wonder if that 10% of the brain humans use means the remaining 90% is full of a different trajectory, a different me, a thought or a memory away. I realize my entire life is full of emotions unrealized in my present, full of the same facts but different conclusions.
It’s so interesting how these thoughts suddenly make reality elastic. Who can be the me who is not me? This is one way to make possibility where none existed but was still there, waiting for discovery. The me who is not me has the same history and the same present, but a different future. It is how things come to be that have not yet been. It means a new story, a different story. It means anything is possible.
This is where change lives. This is where a different life manifests. It’s an interesting fulcrum to use to become a different me, which means a different you; a different you who is not you. In a way, this may be the god inside of me (or is it you?), which sounds so arrogant. The idea god could be the me who is not me, because what is a god if not the creator of something that was not there before. Or maybe it is just the magic in the world.
This is the story of the me who is not me, the you who is not you and what happens right next to us that we cannot see but we can become.
