Yup, she’s up and going.  She is not perfect nor is she great but she is going.  I will be posting as well as working on design issues but she is still readable!  YAY!  I welcome all input, creative or otherwise.

This is my official last post on this blog and I am quite happy and feeling good about it.  Please!  Tell me what your thoughts are!

Jen

SO, I realize I am down to blogging once a month and that’s because I REALLY want to get my other website up and going before I really dig in.  And with that being said, here’s what’s been going on since I last posted!

It was with mixed feelings that I left Ohio about 35 days ago.  I had fun spending time with family and Doug and have to admit, I secretly am in love with the rolling green hills of the Amish Ohio country side, but The Universe has pointed out on more than one occasion that now is not my time to be there.

I moved back to Colorado as of April 2nd and couldn’t be happier with any decision (except that whole India thing).  With the help of a good friend, I have started my own business assisting seniors and challenged people and it’s been going well thus far!  I have been accepted to Naropa University in Boulder for the Master of Divinity program starting this fall.  I have been running into old friends and have been busy as a bee getting caught up and telling my story.  For some reason, people would rather hear me tell the story than read the blog even though there are pictures on the blog.  I have been finding myself running into complete strangers that want to hear my story and I end up making MORE friends.  I have been having a particularly fun time hunting down people and passing out the presents that I got them.  My family at Sopris has been welcoming yet understanding that I have no desire to ever return to A)the computer world and B) work for a large corporation.  They have all begged me to come back but understand that it just won’t happen.  I guess I underestimate people?  I have lunch, hang out and chit chat with more Sopris people than I can imagine some days.

I have also been running into people that can probably help me with bringing Rinzin over for school, how cool is that?  OH!  I almost forgot, I am moving to a sustainable farm in Boulder on June 1st where I am going to be learning strawbale building and different uses for adobe.  They also have some alternative energy projects going on that they need help with so I’m getting practice for my future!  In the mean time, I am staying with the gracious and wonderful Steve and doing house sitting gigs for people.  I am tentatively scheduled to go north to get the kitties on May 28th and I CAN”T WAIT!  I miss my cats so bad.  Patrick sends me pictures and it actually makes me sad when I see them.

I’ve also had some more people contact me about their own trips to India.  Some need reassurance that they won’t end up dead while some just need a little direction and a pep talk, either of which I am happy to provide.  I am also hot on scheduling my next trip back to India next summer.   It’ll only get to be a month long but I’m soooooper excited about it because I have people that want to come with me!  How cool!

I have been making an effort to get out more so I took Tracy Kileen to Denver’s First Friday art walk this past Friday night.  Not only did she and I have a blast, she bought me an ADORABLE hand beaded bracelet and I took her to Mercury Cafe for dinner and she fell in love with the place just as I did a couple years ago.  While on the art walk, we ran into my good friend and former walking partner, Bobby To, and we caught up a bit.  He is joining me for my birthday dinner tonight so we can catch up appropriately.  Bobby is a PV Research Science Engineer at NREL and he and I always have a lot to talk about.  Yesterday I took Steve’s 9 year-old son to a Rockies game and I got hella sunburnt but we had a good time eating everything in sight and watching the Rockies pound the Dodgers!  So I guess I’ll spend the rest of the summer remembering sunblock.  GUH.

Well, I’ve got work to do so I’m going to have to cut this post short.  Being my own boss means I can get things done at strange hours and sometimes that means taking advantage of those strange hours just to get things done, ya know?  And my commute is killer!  No getting dressed if I don’t want to.

SO I’m off to pick up a birthday breakfast treat for myself; wheat-free, gluten free coffee cake at Logan’s coffee shop.  I am thinking about taking cupcakes to a client’s house today, one for each of us.  He’s a lot of fun and totally gets that just because I chose to work on my birthday doesn’t mean I’m not going to have some fun!

I have pics to post but they will have to wait.  And for all of you faithful readers, I promise to try to keep up better with the blogging now that I’m atleast settled in one state.  I’m going in so many directions that sometimes I forget.

Happy Birthday to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I totally forgot to explain the Donation Button to the right>>>>  As long as this website exists and I am alive, I am still raising money for the nuns and this website is now officially one of the fund raising tools for Jamyang Choling!  YAY!  SO if anyone would like to donate money to Jamyang Choling, feel free to do so through that button.  I’ll make sure the girls get it because I was best buddies with the nunnery accountant!  HA!

Lots going on here in Ohio since my last post….what seems like a year ago. My new website is still sitting in a corner staring at me, I applied to Naropa for the Master of Divinity program and am waiting to hear from them, Doug has been in and out of the hospital with a life-threatening staph infection and cellulitis (VERY SCARY), The Brahma Kumaris came from New York to turn my world upside down, make me long for India, reminding me to meditate and left like a cloud in the breeze, Stephanie has two new fillies in Longmont (can’t wait to go pet them!), went to Everett and picked up my car from the wonderful Kristen, had a GREAT meeting with Shoshanna in Denver, attended my first drumming circle in Montrose, Ohio (holy crap cool), got CPR/ADF and first aid certified, have started to read The Bible, my money has officially run out AND I can’t wait to get back to Colorado in the next 7 days.

Over to the right you will see that I finally posted my reading list from India. It’s a doooooozie.

Okay, I know some of you are probably wondering what the heck is going on with me…..I started meditating again. I know, I know, I never should have STOPPED but I DID and I paid for it. Dearly. SO I started meditating again a couple weeks ago and that is my big lesson on why it’s good to make the effort to be present. When you’re not present in your everyday life, you flounder and do dumb things. I have also been making a concerted effort at changing some of my behavioral patterns and auto-responses so that’s been quite a roller coaster as well. Doing self work is rewarding yet, exhausting and Doug said he has watched the process and it’s definitely a self-induced place of crazy that only I can get myself out of.

I haven’t found a place to do the photo exhibits here in Ohio and I’m guessing that’s because I wasn’t going to stay here long! You just never know! I surely would have known had I been meditating and staying present (as I stick my tongue out at myself and use my snottie voice) I also had this crazy urge to clean all of my junk out of my parents basement 2 days ago. I threw away a LOT of junk and it was cathartic. I had a great time reminiscing while going through boxes of stuff from when I was married some 6 years ago. 6 years ago? Wow.

My mom and dad’s puppy, Zoe, is almost 6 months old and weighs 17 lbs! She’s a solid black mini-schnauzer and she’s ADORABLE and is surely daddy’s girl. She gets spayed next week (poor thing). She’s gonna be HUGE when she’s full grown. More of a standard than a mini if you ask me. I tried my hand at working on computers again and HATED it more than anything I’ve ever done in my life. I passed the task onto my parent’s neighbor-kid Brian as he’s a little computer wiz in his second year at Akron University and even writes his own computer newspaper column in the Medina Gazette. Thank GOD he’s around to take over working with dad’s computer, I was so done with that. I would rather empty bedpans at a hospital than fix computers of a living ever again.

SOOOOO, that leaves my exit from the state. My tax return check should be here any day now and that will allow me to get BACK IN THE CAR (WONDERFUL as it is) and drive BACK to Colorado. I LOVE Colorado. My buddy Steve has graciously offered up his spare bedroom, in his HUGE Longmont house, while I get myself set up. All I have to do is get a job and a place to live and get to Everett to get the kitties all in anticipation of school starting this fall! YAY! Orientation is the second week of August or there abouts so I just need to find something that I can do full time for summer and back it down to like 75% time and switch to evenings when school starts. I am more than willing to get extra student loans to cover my butt the first semester to have some cushion as far as figuring out job and money. It’ll be tough but it’ll be worth it. I just know I’m going to get in to Naropa so I might as well embrace the poverty! I just want my kitties back!

Seeing the kitties for a few days in Everett was wonderful. Witnessing how all of the animals interact in the house was fun to watch as well. Keiko held a bit of a grudge initially but when she saw Sam getting all kinds of attention she realized that pride wasn’t worth not getting love from her mommy. I told them I’d be back to get them before August so I gotta get my act together!

The big project that I have staring at me is getting to Dove Creek and picking up my stuff from my cousins’ farm. I am trying to figure out how to get out there and stay a bit. AND have a job AND find a place AND get the kitties AND get my life together. I’m sure it’ll all work out but one thing I was counting on SO much to be able to do is to go to Dove Creek and BE for a while. I miss Linda and David like no other and I really want them back in my life full time but it’s hard to do with life and all of it’s unexpected twists and turns. I officially have nobody in my life full time.

I’m also looking forward to being in the Boulder area so I can get some help bringing Rinzin over to go to college. BAH! I need some more things on my plate, doncha think? Good lord.

So that’s it for now. Everything and Nothingness. The ‘Everything’ is all of the drama and whatnot the material world drops in our lap. The ‘Nothingness’ is my reminder to meditate and keep opening that still space in myself so that being present is a possibility.

I’m back.

I woke up this morning compelled to write what could be my last official post on this blog!  WOW! Came out of nowhere really but I know it’s the right thing to do.  This chapter is closing and I’m working on my new blog/website as we speak to get my new chapter up and going.  Life is good, people!  Things have been wonderful here at Chez Doug and I wouldn’t have asked for it to be any different.  I’ve learned tons of lessons since I’ve returned and am working very hard on keeping with me the person I found in myself while I was in the land of “Do I really need to wash my hands?  Do I really want to chance electrocution today?”
I love and miss my girls.  We email.  Especially Rinzin and I.  Just the thought of someone in America trying to find her money for American college makes her too excited to do home work some days.  She sent me a poem on Valentines  Day, telling me how much she misses me and loves me.  She’s probably the closest thing to a daughter I’m going to have in this life and I’d like her here with me.  I’m working on finding venues for the photo exhibit, as the CD arrived about 2 weeks ago and I can’t wait to get something up and going but haven’t gotten out to Seattle to pick up the car so hmph.  We shall see.

I’ve been having a blast rediscovering NE Ohio.  I haven’t spent much time in this area since 1995 so getting out and making friends has been fun.  And no, things haven’t really changed all that much except for a couple store fronts in Highland Square.  Highland square is of course my ‘hood of choice.  It reminds me of where I lived in downtown Denver but not quite as volatile.  I am seeking a job in that area as well as housing.  I was sad to see Two Amigos closed.  After talking to someone that owns a business one block from it’s former venue, I learned that neighborhood drama is still neighborhood drama.  Shit happens and stuff.

I’d like to write more but I want to save it for the new website.  This blog isn’t about Highland Square so let’s leave it at that, shall we?  I have to get moving because I’m going to drop off flyers in the area today for a group I’m doing volunteer work for.  www.bkwsu.com  Yes, yes……I still volunteer……even in Ohio where Volunteering is almost a dirty word.  I put up a craigslist ad the other day for a musician to volunteer 2 hours at a conference.  Within 5 minutes some not so nice person emailed me and asked me exactly how many hours I had ever volunteered to get my career off the ground.  WELL……After trying to do the math and it equaling somewhere over 5 continuous months, I felt it best not to respond to his email.  He doesn’t know who I am and I’m not going to start a pissing contest with a stranger over something that just doesn’t matter in the big picture.  If he wants to be not nice, he can do it else where.  I deleted his email.

And speaking of VOLUNTEERING…..I found a great website….www.idealist.org.  All the volunteering you can shake a stick at and NONE of it here in NE Ohio.  Go figure.

And with that, I believe I am almost DONE HERE.  The new website will have a link to this one and I DO have some little loose ends to tie up and some stuff to write but it ain’t comin right now, people, so it’s just not time?

Rinzin just emailed me, I gotta go!  I hope everyone is well.

Okay, so I’m starting to get some emails (read flak)  inquiring about my lack of blog posts since I’ve been back.  The plain and simple truth of the matter is that I’m not ready.  What I need to say is whirling around in my head but hasn’t settled yet.  I’m even having trouble emailing people and getting complete sentences out correctly.  This is the end of my beginning and I want to get it right.

I’ve also had the distinct displeasure of being sick.  AGAIN.  7 days ago my ear infection returned with unfettered zest and I had a sinus infection that made me snore like a freight train.  I’m betting dollars to donuts I never actually threw the ear infection while in India, but that’s merely a hunch.  I’m currently staying at Saint Doug’s house, in Cuyohoga Falls, to try to prevent getting my parents sick.  He has forwarded an invitation that I remain here after I am well and I am taking him up on his offer.  Doug has often referred to the snoring as ‘cute’ so I know I’m not over-staying my welcome and he seems not to mind the sofa as he has relinquished his bedroom and private bath to me.

Needless to say, my mind is in knots at this point.  I sincerely apologize for my lack of blog posting and my lovely cousin Linda gently suggested I post an “I’m not ready to post” blog post out of consideration for my readers so that’s what this post is.  It’s the “I’m not quite ready to post” post.  I am sorry I have been remiss in communicating to everyone properly the level of physical and somewhat mental illness I am suffering.

The end of my trip has been a trip in itself!

Please be patient.

Genla

So last night, I had this big long posting all typed out for today, went to save it and it promptly disappeared.  I don’t know where it went so I believe I wasn’t supposed to post it.  Donno why.  So, with that said, I have no post for my last Thursday in India.  Oh well.  Tomorrow it’s off to Kangra Fort with the lovely Ganden and Saturday and Sunday are teachings with His Holiness.  Way too much going on to wing a posting at this late hour so I might post on Sunday and then again I might wait till I’m bored out of my skull and on the verge of watching TV on Monday.

For those heading out for Holiday festivities, please be safe.  Theres a lot of crazies out there driving drunk because there’s a fat man in a red velour suit enroute.

I get on the bus to Delhi at 6:00 pm, Sunday night.  Yuck.

So I got the bitching out of my system and now with approx 7 days left, I have once again swung back to “I don’t wanna go back to America yet!”  I’m sitting here on my veranda at 8:20 in the morning and I have already eaten breakfast and finished a bucket of laundry.  I am wrapped up in drinking my second cup of tea, wearing my sandals, 2 pairs of sox, 2 pairs of pants, 4 shirts and my fingerless gloves that I bought off of one of the nuns (she knits gloves and hats) and listening to the chanting all around me in preparation for their exams on the 18^th and I don’t wanna leave!  It’s perfectly lovely out today.  It’s a sunny 48F outside and in, of course.  Hahahahhaha.  I couldn’t care less.  I’m going to go for my walk and then go try to eradicate some viruses off of the new nunnery computer that were put there by some monastic angel that has no clue what a computer virus is.  How can you get mad at them?  It’s not their job to know of such worldly things!

 My return to long-distance running…..

While doing my regular walking here, I’ve noticed that oh so familiar feeling returning to me.  I have the undeniable urge to run again.  Even have dreams about it.  My exactly 2-year hiatus from my sneakers gave me insight into my physical and emotional needs for running.  I just meditate better when I run, plain and simple.  I won’t be going for those 18 to 26-mile jaunts anymore because I realize the point of it wasn’t for some dumb award at the end of a race telling me what a good runner I was.  I am supposed to be running for myself because that’s what I love most and it’s how I give birth to my next me.  My hella-sciatica will be kept in check with regular yoga, now that I have a good grasp of it and why it really does work so well.  I have gained great knowledge from friends that are holistic practitioners and I paid attention!  In 11 days I brave the Day After Christmas sales so that I can start running around the reservoir by my parent’s house and watching the buffalo roam ASAP.  I wonder if maybe those foot/bike paths were finished while I’ve been away.  And please, don’t anyone go panicking and trying to talk me out of it.  I realize that when I quit running two years ago, I was kind of a crippled mess and I said it would be my last time, but I can’t say no.  I’ve had a 16-year love/hate relationship with my right leg (especially since the great Diamond Head knee blow out of ’97) and I’m determined to get it right this time.  And if I have trouble I’ll slow down….I swear! 

 A BIG THANK YOU TO STEVE BAUMGARTNER!!!!!!!!!

Sopris West’s ever reliable and sweet Steve B (not to be confused with Steve C in the   Design department) picked up my down comforter and pillows from the dry cleaners last week.  Guh.  Yeah, I know I’m a bit of a loon but the dry cleaners were the last thing on my mind when I left Longmont.  They’d been there since the day I moved from the horse farm into town….February?  If he keeps them I wouldn’t hold it against him.  They’re super nice and he’d be getting quite a nice set for the $50 it took him to get them out of hock.  Who do you know selling a king-size down comforter with matching pillows for 50 bucks?  Oh well.  They’re just things.  He DID of course offer to send them to me…..I’m 50/50 on it right now.  I’d have him send them to Patrick but Patrick’s got kitties and a girlfriend to keep him warm so I’m not too worried about him.  We shall see. 

 CJ!  Find Steve a girlfriend already!  

 The Weather

 In case anyone out there has reading comprehension issues, it’s cooling off here.  I was remiss in bringing two pair of long underwear so I wash the top and bottoms on alternating days.  It’s been dropping about 1/3 of a degree per day and when the sun shines it only tops out at 55 or so by 2 pm.  This morning it was 47 in my room when I woke up.  There were 5 solid days of clouds and rain then back to sunshine yesterday and today.  The humidity has also been on the rise, now hovering around 59% give or take.  When the sun shines, there is a mad rush to the showers.  Everyone here savors her hot showers, with the cloudy weather upon us.  I’ve been abusing my water kettle these past few days for bucket showers and laundry.  I silently thank Lobsang Chodon every time.  I get the feeling I won’t be jonesing to go camping anytime soon, and then again I might go on retreat this coming summer in the mountains of the great North West.  Never know.

 NUNS!

On the nun front, I’m starting to get serious flack for leaving and I want to cave to it.  The girls frown when they hear I’m leaving and when I mention my intentions to return in July of 2009, they point out that July 2008 is much closer and I should try for that instead.  If I knew I had the money to keep Sallie Mae quiet, I’d be back in a flash.  BUT I have some HUGE projects to sink into upon my return to America and many nuns are counting on me SO my time for selfishness has come to an end.   

 I desperately want to pack Rinchen, Ganden and Lobsang in my bag and bring them home with me so that I have someone to talk to when I’m back in the land of high-strung, competitive women.  I know that I will cringe the first time I am confronted by a big, strong, perfectly put together, in-your-face business woman.  I will also feel compassion for her that she feels she needs to be that way so others consider her “successful” in life.  I used to be her.  I know.   

 

Living in the foothills of the Himalayas ain’t all it’s cracked up to be some days.  I woke up this morning and it’s down to 50F in my room.  I actually got warm enough last night under all of my layers of covers to take one pair of pants, one pair of socks and my gloves off!  WOW!  But had to immediately put it all back on when I got up so….whatever.  I took a walk down to the kitchen to get my breakfast and thought just out of curiosity I’d put my weather station outside to see how cold it is on my veranda.  Whadaya know its 50F outside too!  Gee Whiz!  What a shocker.  Could it be because there is a 2-inch gap at the bottom of my door that my flimsy floor mat can’t block?  Or maybe it’s because THERES NO HEAT?  This is about the time I sit and laugh to myself remembering when, in Tibetan language class in Boulder, I asked Lhoppon what the weather was like here.  His response was “sometimes it get SO COLD we have on two coat AND mitten and we STILL shiver!”  I know, I know informative but I didn’t think it’d get that cold down here.  I’m still in the foothills but I’m not up at 6,000 ft. either.  But I’m not as cold or as hungry as the feral puppies and kittens that I see everywhere that nobody cares for so I suck it up and shut up.  This was my choice, they don’t have one.  But the really interesting part of all of this is NOBODY has heat.  People live huddled around either electric space heaters, a propane can with a boiling pot of water or a little steel pan in the middle of a room with an open fire in it.  It reminds me of growing up with the wood burning stove and always smelling wood smoke in the winters. 

 But remember that these people don’t sit around and watch the stupid boob tube all damn day.  There is no such thing as unemployment benefits or disability cheques.  These people are grinding grain for flour, making meals for 28 people, feeding livestock, tending crops, washing clothes in a bucket with a rock, walking sometimes MILES for water to do these things, some of the men leave the home to go try to make a living as a taxi driver or shop owner.  This place ain’t easy, folks.  But at the same time there IS ease about the place.  There is no harried pace of 40 things to do before the day is out so you don’t lose your job.  There is all the time in the world to get things done here cuz there’s always tomorrow.  Nobody is going anywhere, so nobody panic.  I adopted that frame of mind somewhat in America, about a year before I left.  The “it’ll be here tomorrow, the world won’t end….calm down”  At work it was tough because in the corporate atmosphere people expect that harried, panicked fervor of striving to be better than so-n-so or going for a promotion or kissing the bosses butt.  I stopped that and ya know what?  People thought I had gone mad.  What I succeeded in doing what giving myself perspective.  Life isn’t all going to work and being a slave to “your things” you are so very proud of, THANK BUDDHA.  But what these very rural and very isolated people DO have, sadly enough, is a very twisted view of America or anywhere else for that matter.  They only know what they see in movies or on the occasional television and we all know that’s not real.  You’ll truly never know until you go. 

 There is this really neat bug that has set up shop on the spine of one of my books.

 And yes, I know I bitch but really do have my heart set on returning in July of 2009 to trek to Manali, Spiti, Sikkim, Zanskar and Ladakh.  I am hoping since it will be summer break here at Jamyang Choling that Ganden will be available to be my guide.  She is looking forward to it as she is from a village in Spiti like Lobsang Chodon.  Maybe Lobsang Chodon will be free to come along too! 

Yes!  I have got it!

 Yes, I have come up with the slogan for the department of tourism for India…”Come to India!  Appreciate what you have at home”. 

 I am officially ready to return to America, the land of forced-air heat and reliable power.  Today it hovered around 52F in my room and the fun part of all of this is even if I WERE inclined to purchase a space heater?  It’s been raining here and snowing up in the mountains so there’s been no power for 80% of the day.  Can’t blame this power outage on the monkeys this time.  Couldn’t even give classes today.  I lie in bed most of the day and read Once Were Warriors.  Gawd what a heart-wrenching book.  I am guessing The Maori of New Zealand received treatment similar to the Native American tribes.  I am curious to do some research on them when I return to the country of stable power sources.  I haven’t read anything Buddhism related today because frankly, my head needs a BREAK from being here and everything Buddhist for 24 hours or so.  And especially after yesterday, I’m just tired of my being a target everywhere I go.  I talked to Yejung about it and she said that if I were going to stay longer she would insist I have some Punjabi clothing made so that I would get left alone.  It’s that simple, wear the local, modest women’s prescribed dress and suddenly, you get a seat on the bus, nobody tries to harass you on said bus, you don’t get followed, teased, things thrown at you or requests to show men your va*ina.  Yup, had some teenage boys following me, giggling and taunting me with “Give me all your money!”  “Give me your purse”  “Show me your va*ina”.  I was infuriated to say the least so I made a proper public spectacle at the boys and they were appropriately horrified by my outburst of yelling, stomping and arm waving.  Even though they don’t know English (but they certainly knew what they were saying to me), the loud, negative attention brought upon them in public is what counts here.  The novelty of my being a novelty has officially worn off.  I long to go for my daily walk and nobody care.

 I am pleased to report that, after some horrifically long emails, Dharma Dan is well on his way to ditching his yuck life and living life the way he really wants!  YAY and congratulations.  It might be a long road, with some real pain in the ass things that have to get done but like I told him, nothing seems bad if you’re getting closer to the life you really want.  The hellish crap I went through to get to India would have made me crazier than a loon (no comments please) except that it was all to get here so it really wasn’t that bad.  When the car needed over $300.00 worth of work done?  I panicked for about 4 hours then calmed down, did the math and realized that if it was going to get me to India, it was worth it and that the Universe would make sure everything was fine.

  And here I am in India, pining away for big bathtubs with lavender scented bubbles and salts, anything that generates heat, my kitties, Raising Arizona (thanks Dan), a hot toddy and an organic dark chocolate bar with raspberries.  But for now I have a hot water kettle (when there’s power and will only cause me repeated trips to the outdoor loo), 3 blankets, 3 layers of clothes, two layers of socks and 3 candles.  Oh yeah.  This is the life!  The girls won’t even come over to visit because it’s so freaken cold over here and they have to study because their annual Philosophy exams are on the 17^th and 18^th so I CANNOT bug them.  I DID manage to pull all of the junk out of my large duffel and actually pack it so it all fits!  Bonus!

 And I am officially lonely.  As much as I adore the girls, the language barrier and the fact that they study ALL THE TIME makes my quiet, single life on the east side of the compound very solitary.  It was so unusually quiet here today I enjoyed the sound of someone nailing a fence together.  The hammer hitting nails made me think of the crazy, great summers my family built houses.  The smell of fresh cut wood, lunch runs, cleaning up the yard in the evening, staining and installing windows in exchange for brakes on my car, the excitement of getting the trusses delivered, being afraid of falling in “the hole”, getting into mud fights with the masonry crews, living out of boxes for 90 days, helping Kris texture the ceiling in the great room, brownies for breakfast, teaching the bird how to cuss, Dick, Norman, the Gorfido boys.  So many memories.