Family, Gatherings, holidays, Music, Uncategorized

Playing Naked

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Husband and I played bells and sang in the choir in three church services yesterday, the last one our annual Lessons and Carols service with musicians from the local LDS Church. After each reading there is a hymn sung by the congregation and an ensemble performance.

Bell ringers wear gloves so that the oils from their hands don’t tarnish the bells. I inadvertently left my gloves in the pew in which I was sitting when I went up to play one of our pieces, and I didn’t want to hold up the service to run back to the pew, so I played naked, (without gloves,  in bell ringer vernacular). Everyone else wore black gloves.  I play in the back row, so I didn’t think anyone would notice. I  hate forgetting things.

How is your memory these days? When have you forgotten something important? How do you keep track of important things?

27 thoughts on “Playing Naked”

  1. My past is generally friendlier than present time, which is one reason I spend so much time there. My main hobby (as measured by how often I do it) is retelling old stories, working always to catch errors and replace missing bits. I long ago discovered that my memory for numbers is worse than terrible, just as my memory for anything in story form is remarkably accurate.

    I have developed a bag of tricks that help me correct mistakes and supply deficiencies. For example, I’ve been comparing memories with my erstwife. She remembers facts I’ve gone foggy about, just as I have vivid memories she has forgotten. Writing out old stories for my grandson has helped me spot errors and omissions. When I recover a fugitive old memory, I preserve it on a file in my computer.

    I’m often amazed at my recall of things my father told me. Stories he told me seventy years ago are as fresh as if I’d heard them yesterday. He was a storyteller too, so he talked about his experience of life in ways that I find easy to remember. Memory is like a muscle. Using it often makes it stronger.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Memory? Who are you? Where am I?

    Later this week I will start to forget things. Probably many things. Yesterday morning, at the time when we used to go to church (remember that? Back in the olden, pre-COVID days) we met with our kitchen contractor and gave him money. We have installed our Nest camera so we can see his work and talk with him with a full view of the area about decisions that need to be made when he is here and we are not.

    We have packed up the kitchen to the point that we are now using disposal plates and cups (we rarely use such things). What a job. At the same time we are packing for our trip to AZ. Somewhere, somehow in this process I will pack the wrong thing for the wrong place. The organizational skills needed to have these two simultaneous projects moving forward may outstrip my actual executive functioning skills. Oh, well. Anything I forget I can probably purchase somewhere along the way.

    Renee, when I forget things like your bell gloves, it is never memory, it is distraction that interferes. I am just so distractable. It just drives me nuts. I could have the gloves in my lap, then stand up when the time comes, allowing the gloves to fall on the floor and walk over them without ever noticing.

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  3. When we owned a cabin, packing to go there or return home was a constant challenge. For us, lists helped enormously, especially lists of things we wanted to take north.

    But as for losing things like gloves, what can a person do? I keep losing my glasses, usually finding them when I realize I’m wearing them!

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  4. trello is my app for lists
    i have multiple projects going on which is not unusual and i keep a list of lists on there
    originally it was to keep track of stuff for others but today i keep track of stuff for me too.
    my phone appears to be my lone tool these days
    i do appreciate it

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    1. We were using Trello at work. Unfortunately we were not using it to make lists, at which it is excellent. We were trying to use it as a communication tool, and it is not excellent at that.

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  5. OK, I’ll be the first to admit it. When I saw the title and then the first few words of your first paragraph, I was thinking something entirely different. Sorry if that makes me the racy one this morning.

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  6. when you think of all the options where playing naked could be imagined bell choir is not tops on my list and on the one hand gloves off is not where i wanted to instinctively go but maybe it’s best when i delve deeper. i’m not sure i want to see either the women or the men shaking those things and making those other things shake at the same time
    football, basketball tennis roller derby… now we’re talking

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  7. would black shoes be required for the naked orchestra performances or could you allow individual freedom to adorn yourself as you wish?
    rolling stones? don’t go there but how do you unthink the image

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  8. Definitely distraction is the biggest issue. I told you all about loosing my hammer earlier this summer; I was distracted when I put that down.
    Half the time I can’t find something it’s because I randomly put it down somewhere while doing something else.

    I keep all my notes in my phone. I am a good list maker. Beginning about March this year I’ve started keeping track of everywhere I go and who I see. Just in case, you know? And when I was having leg issues last fall I started keeping track of medical issues. Which this spring turned into every little cough or tickle. Not sure if that was good or bad.
    I have memos for meeting notes so I can keep track of what I’m supposed to bring up at the town board meeting or theater board meeting.

    When I forget something, it’s not so much I “forgot”; I knew that meeting was coming up… I just didn’t realize it was today. You know, that sort of thing. I know I have a Meeting at 6:30, but then I get home and feed the chickens and brush the dogs and I get a text and I finish what I’m doing and realize the text was at 6:45 asking if I’m coming to the meeting. Oh. Yeah.

    We’ve had an auxiliary UPS driver the last few weeks. He drives a white pickup truck. He stopped down this morning with a package that had two addresses on it. The first address was in town, the second address was out in the middle of no-where, sort of in our neighborhood. He thought maybe i knew the people. Nope. From the tracking numbers he said the second address was the correct one. Don’t know what he’s going to do with it, but I bet someone is following that tracking number and wondering why their package has been “Out for Delivery” for 3 days.

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  9. I agree with all who have mentioned distraction. But I have noticed that I sometimes don’t remember, say, the plot to a movie or book I’ve read in the recent past. until prompted. This is disturbing, but part of the natural order of things, according to what I’ve read.

    Important things I try to write down on multiple calendars.. Lately there haven’t been as many “important things” to deal with.

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      1. Precisely—I only run one master calendar in my life. The calendars that are big trouble for me, but many people swear by, are the electronic variety. Frankly, they seem to lose a lot of entries. At work for the past 10-15 years, as colleagues try to use electronic calendars, I seem to be the one meeting the mistakenly scheduled client and explaining that my colleague is not in the office today and that there must have been a mistake. Man, oh man, oh man, oh man…

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  10. Word of the day:

    Campanology
    kamp-ə-NAH-lə-jee
    Part of speech: noun
    Origin: Latin, mid 19th century

    1
    The art or practice of bell-ringing.

    Examples of Campanology in a sentence

    “We knew he played the piano, but his expertise at campanology surprised us.”

    “The art of campanology is kept alive during the holiday season.”

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  11. Forgetfulness

    The name of the author is the first to go
    followed obediently by the title, the plot,
    the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
    which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
    never even heard of,

    as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
    decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
    to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

    Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
    and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
    and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

    something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
    the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

    Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
    it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
    not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

    It has floated away down a dark mythological river
    whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
    well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
    who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

    No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
    to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
    No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
    out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

    – Billy Collins

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      1. I love that poem. One I’ve shared with my friend, Philip, as he struggles with his memory. As of today, Philip will no longer be receiving medicines aimed at prolonging his life. He’s tired, and is ready to go. As of today, he will be receiving only palliative drugs to ease his pain. I really treasure the frank conversations we’ve had lately about life, death, and everything in between. It’s surprising to me how many laughs we’ve had in the process. I’ll miss him, and I’ve told him so, but this is clearly his call. I hope he goes peacefully in his sleep.

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