Access the Good

A friend of mine, very recently, asked me a pretty simple question, that should have had a pretty simple answer, “Tell me a happy memory from your past.” To my surprise, it was rather difficult. I laid down on my couch, got nice and comfy, closed my eyes, and searched through all the folds in my brain. I could not come up with one specific, pinpoint memory of happiness! I had general feelings of people, places, and life events that I know gave me joy, but it was frustrating to nail down the specifics of any one thought. I cheated a little bit and told her that right then I was having a happy memory talking with her…not good enough. I continued to dig and came up with one about a job promotion I had gotten years earlier and the feeling of pride I had at that moment. It was a real feeling of accomplishment and validation. My friend told me to remember and tap into that feeling whenever you needed a boost. That’s good advice, although I remember saying it felt a bit clinical. I still had this nagging feeling though. I know I have many, many happy memories. It just seems as though when I try to access certain ones, especially dealing with people, they seem to be complex and cloudy.

What became more distressing was the fact that I had no problem accessing painful memories; deaths of loved ones, times I got physically hurt, and the ending of relationships. I can remember the day, the atmosphere, what was happening in the news on those days. I thought to myself that there must be something wrong with my brain. Why can I remember the bad over the good? Apparently there have been studies on this exact phenomenon, and it’s more common then I thought. A Stanford Psychology professor, Laura Carstensen, has surmised that it might have something to do with our evolutionary roots and our adaptive brains. It is better for us to remember our painful or scary interactions that will help us survive then to remember that pretty flower or sunset. While that’s all well and good, I was still disappointed that I was having such a hard time really remembering a purely good memory, without it being corrupted by a bad one.

I buckled down and searched deep inside the memory bank, as far back as a I could possibly remember, looking for that one golden egg. I kept getting stuck on this memory I had back in 1st grade. I got knocked over by some bigger kids, and fell on my elbow. I started crying and my friend came over to me, and helped me up and said I needed to stop crying because “all the females” were watching! We were six years old! The more I thought about that time, the more I did feel embarrassed about the situation and that I couldn’t reach beyond that one moment…until I did. I realized I just had to stop thinking about memories associated with people and go into what really blew my mind. I do vaguely remember seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater when I was five, and that was huge for sure, but my excitement overload makes it hard for me to fully remember it fully where it doesn’t feel like a dream.

Around that same time, I was in kindergarten. I was part of a new program called the ELP program, or Exceptional Little People. Of course the other kids jumped on that and renamed the E for Evil, so the school changed the named to the Gifted Program. One day a week we got to leave our regular classes and go and learn about things outside of the standard core curriculum of a Florida public school, which included special field trips. One of those trips was to the now famous Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, which at that time had only been open for a year or two. I had no idea about surrealism, impressionism, abstract, or the post modern as a 5-year-old, but I can easily remember being in total awe the entire time. I really liked Dali’s work and still do, but there was another artist that totally captured my imagination that day, and still is my absolute favorite painter of all time.

The museum was having a special exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh’s works that had never traveled to the US before, and I was completely drawn to them. When I saw his work up close, the swirls, the gobs of paint, and the emotion of it all, I couldn’t look away. Everyone loves The Starry Night (1889). It’s been at the MoMA here in Manhattan since 1941. Patrons flock to it in and just stand and stare at it. I know I have on several occasions over the years. But on that day, my 5 year-old self was transfixed on one specific artwork called Wheatfield with Crows (1890). I couldn’t’ look away from it, and I got my face as close as possible to it, without being pulled back. Seeing his work in the 3D and not just a picture in a book was an event of awakening for little me. Even writing about it now gives me that warm and tingly feeling all over. I stayed with the painting for as long as I could until the class was pulled away for lunch, but it definitely downloaded into me and ingrained with my DNA for as long as I can remember. When I got older I learned more about Van Gogh, and his eventual demise, and that the Wheatfield painting was quite possibly his final work. The symbolism of crows and the road having a definite end I suppose were signs of someone who was ready to leave this place, but instead of feeling sad about that, I only had happiness that he still shared this with us all. How lucky was I to experience it. I had a print of it on my wall in high school and throughout college.

There are so many other works of art that I love, but they’ve all been shared with someone else, and people make my memories complex to say the least. There are some songs, and films that I still love, but I cannot bring myself to experience again because it reminds me of something both filled with joy and pain. I think what makes Wheatfield so special is that is was just for me. I didn’t share that affinity with anyone really. It has always stayed uncorrupted and pure in my heart. That memory is a core one, but one I haven’t thought about in a very long time. There is a tremendous amounts of good out there, but sometimes it is just difficult to see it, especially in these last couple of years. I’m happy this friend reminded me it was ok to look back, find the good, and be happy.