Memory Box

A long time ago I watched a teacher use this "trick" to help a student remember her spelling words.  I share it today for all of us who occasionally struggle to  keep numbers or names in our aging and sometimes unreliable brains,  It works - at least in the short term.  I am not aware that it is a copyrighted or patented method - but I do know that someone invented it.

Here goes:
1. Become aware of where your eyes go when you are trying to remember something (letters, names, numbers etc.)  You will see that your eyes almost always go to the same place...maybe upper right, lower left..everyone is different.

2. Once you have that awareness, visually/mentally  create an empty rectangle in that space.  That is your memory box.

3. When you come upon something you want to remember (maybe a phone number, or a new name) consciously put that something in your memory box.  (I visualize the numbers as I "put" them in my memory box.) Once you "have it" there, "look" at it in your mind.

4. When you want to retrieve that number, "look"  at your memory box (move your eyes in the normal memory direction)- and...(hopefully) you will easily retrieve your information.

5. Of course the memory box is probably short term - so don't try to overload it with too many things.

6.Sorry, but  it only works if you can first remember that you have created a memory box!

Lucky!!

Google gotta love you...but darn it's become a challenge to blog or comment.  Maybe I have it figured out, but maybe not.  I have missed being able to comment on blogs I have read everyday for years.

Trying again as I am sidelined by a double ankle fracture and a huge pink cast.  Surgery aside, it has forced me to slow down, way down, and stirred a great compassion for my smart active mother who never complained about how hard it must have been to live the last two years of her life in a wheel chair, and my vivacious and funny aunt Annie who used crutches from age fourteen on due to a rare crippling disease.

I have been touched by the calls and cards, the folks who show up with food and offers to get me out of the house.  I am stunned and daunted by the challenge presented by my front steps and the sweet curving path to the street.

  Every day I am stonger and every day I realize how blessed I am.  Every day I give thanks that when I fell down the interior stairs in my house, I had my phone with me.  And everyday I am grateful for baby rivers and boyfriend who jumped in the car when they got my call, kept me talking as they drove, and called 911 when they realized I had passed out. I am a very lucky girl with a big fat left foot.