My memory palace
My Memory Palace
I have a memory palace, a system of loci, that is personal and private to me. It is Kelsy’s Forest. I share some aspects of it, but I keep the particulars to myself. Recently, I have made a new memory palace in a larger forest. I want to make it public so that people can see how it works. You can walk through my new memory palace and try it for yourself, if you want, to practice, or even to use as your own memory palace. Your memory palace should be a place of personal meaning to you. I certainly hope that you would visit the 26 locations in this new memory palace, and appreciate and enjoy them, and maybe come to think of them as your own. You can have more than one memory palace, for different purposes.
Most memory palaces have been constructed using buildings and rooms that people know. I always want to connect to nature, every chance I can, and if I am going to spend time wandering around a place in my mind, I want it to be a place I love, where I want to linger.
My memory palace contains all of my animal family. Cheena, Gizmo, Heidi, Tanzy, Duck, Charlie, Smookler, Norbert, Porter, Max, Boots, Jinx, Wolfgang, Tess, Bear, Kelsy, Olive, Wakomu, Fozzie, Sky, Viktor, Valentino, Dexter, and Raphael. I place these cats and dogs at the locations, one by one.
What3Words is an app that has assigned a group of three words to each 10-foot-square section of the earth. Lately, I have been naming trees I know and like with labels from What3Words. It gives the trees names, which are often poetic, and it fixes them at a location. Not that the trees were moving around before. I mean, each tree has an address. It’s a way of building my relationships with individual trees, giving them specific names and addresses.
Recently, I marked out 26 locations of plants and trees and rocks in Seahurst Park and in Lake Burien School Park. This is a landscape where I have roots. The tree in LBSP still stands even after the school was torn down, outdated and unneeded. My grandmother first went to that school in 1913, I believe, when the school was just a tent. My mother also went to that school, and so did I. The old tree, a silver maple or water maple, Acer saccharinum , has been shading my family for a century. I like to imagine that my grandmother read a book while sitting under the young tree. My nephew will be 12 this summer, and we will have our annual gathering for his birthday, under the shade of this giant tree. It is the Z tree in my memory palace. ///notes.divide.heavy is the What3Words address. My system of loci has memorable physical locations that have meaning for me.
When I first made my original memory palace, Kelsy’s Forest, I used it to learn Morse Code in one day. I was able to memorize all of the Morse Code alphabet in one day, and it stuck. I accomplished this by fixing a letter to each location. I also made up a system where words five letters or less represented a dot, and six letters and more stood for dashes.
The first location is a maple in the southwest corner of Seahurst Park. It has the What3Words address of ///trips,emerge.force. My first dog, Cheena, waits for me at this location. Her morse code words are Agile Cheena, 5 and 6 letters, dot and dash, for the letter A. In my mind, I walk up to the maple tree, Acer macrophyllum, and I see Cheena, a fluffy black and white dog, probably a border collie mix, bounding around on the hillside and on the tree trunk, in a makeshift agility course. Agile Cheena, 5 and 6, dot and dash. I see the location and the action, and it sticks in my mind. Imagining physical movement and contact can bind a created memory in your system of loci. I pet Cheena and give her a treat. The way a system of loci works is that you are more likely to remember a detail if your body is physically moving through a space, or if you can imagine that your body is moving through that space. Your body remembers.
In this way, I walk through my memory palace, see each animal, each son or daughter, and attach memories where I can go in and retrieve them when I want. In my original memory palace, Kelsy’s Forest, Kelsy would walk through with me as I retrieved memories. Of course, she walks through my new memory forest with me, too. (Kelsy is always with me.)
I used to think I didn’t have a good memory. If someone I met told me their name, I wouldn’t even pay attention because I would just assume I wasn’t going to remember it. Decades ago, I read a book on improving your memory, and I promptly forgot everything it said. More recently I read, “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything” by Joshua Foer. I have been memorizing license plates for the Silver Alerts you see on freeway message boards. I use them as a test. 8WKZ776 and BSS8008 were a couple of recent ones. When Mu & I had a search in Portland, I used the drive down there to memorize a number of 16 digits. I have memorized Tino’s microchip number. Why would I want to remember a 16 digit number or a microchip number when I have an iPhone and I could just write it down and look it up? One reason is that I like to use these memorized numbers for passwords, so they aren’t written down anywhere, but I can easily look them up in my mind. Another reason I memorize numbers is to exercise and improve my memory.
For our work finding lost pets, Mu and Tino and I will do about 150 searches per year, maybe. I get requests for assistance about 700 times a year. I need to remember details about particular dogs and cats, and their circumstances. It helps to have a method to be able to remember a string of details. As detailed in my book, The Lost Pet Rescue Handbook, when I create a file for a lost pet, I will often organize the data in the same format so that I can load details into a memory palace for that cat or dog. Each data point goes to a locus in my system of loci, Cheena, Gizmo, Heidi, Tanzy, Duck, and so on. When I am out on a search, being able to readily recall details helps me make decisions or interpret evidence. Lost cats may behave in different ways, depending on their personality, history, and physical characteristics. Some dogs would hide close by while other dogs might run for miles. For each pet, I generate a file about 500 words long. I don’t memorize the whole 500 words, necessarily, but if I can memorize about 20 key details, the rest of the file is easier to recall.
For practical purposes, I want to use a memory palace or a system of loci to be better at things. Mu and Tino and I save at least 20 lives of lost cats and dogs every year. Details matter, and having a memory palace can help me and the dogs do our best. Memory is also important to me in other ways. I write fiction, and the ability to remember and how we remember is a key feature of my stories. I am learning birds of our area, understanding their language and habits. I can use my memory palace to remember details about birds so I can identify them easier.
One of my main interests in sharpening my memory is that I want to always remember Kelsy. Although I lost her nearly 7 years ago, I have thought of her every day since then. I think I might be a bit unusual in my habit and practice of recalling a dog on a daily basis. Some people are like me, and think of lost pets every single day, but it seems to me that most people don’t talk about their long-deceased pets. Maybe many people think about their lost pets, but just don’t say so. Early on, after Kelsy’s death, when I found myself thinking of her constantly, many of my thoughts revolved around her battle with cancer and the last moments of her life. After not too many weeks, my thoughts of Kelsy became mostly about all the good things we did together, like searching for a lost white dog in a ravine in the pouring rain in the dark, or times we played at the off leash park or hiked in the mountains. I would say that Kelsy lives in me. I am Kelsy’s memory palace. As long as I can remember her, she never really died. I want to remember her as long as I can.
You might think that human memory is like computer memory, and if you fill up your capacity to remember with certain data and history, then you won’t have room to store other memories. If I remember a 16 digit number, do I lose the memory of hiking the Duckabush River with Kelsy and Porter and Tess? Studies have shown that exercising your memory can improve your ability to remember more things. Although human memory capacity is not unlimited, having a memory palace and using mnemonic techniques can improve your ability to remember ordinary or special things. On my recent walk with Tino, while scouting locations for my new memory palace, he rested in the creek and cooled off. He got his belly in the water and drank from the stream. We weren’t doing anything special, just walking in the woods. I always want to remember that moment. I can because I took a picture, and also because that spot is a point in my memory palace. I can remember other moments that are just ordinary, if I want, by placing them in my memory palace. It’s not just for numbers or critical data.
The most recent silver alert is a white Nissan Titan, license plate C23095S. I saw that as I was driving to work this morning. I placed this information at location C, which is the aspen trees in the driveway roundabout in Seahurst Park. This point coincides with Heidi. My mnemonic morse code for the location is “Canoeing with flowery Heidi”, and I imagine Heidi in a canoe with me, and she has flowers in her hair. (It also yields the morse code for the letter C, -.-. ) Heidi is a tortoise shell. For the license plate and vehicle i want to remember, I picture that the white Nissan has a rack on top, and a canoe, and Heidi is sitting in the canoe, waiting patiently. I go to the back of the truck, carrying a thick black marker, two signs and a rivet gun. I mark a big letter C on the tailgate. Then I fasten the two signs to the tailgate using the rivet gun. The first sign says Warning, High Voltage, 230 Volts. The second sign is an Interstate 95 freeway sign, the iconic blue shield with white letters. To the right of the signs I mark a big black S. C23095S. I see myself walking up to the truck, marking the letters and attaching the signs. It is a riveting memory, you could say. You might think that’s a lot of work to go to for remember one license plate number. It’s actually no work at all. I imagined it as I was driving down the road. Writing it out here took some time and effort, but remembering the license plate and imagining the actions at point C in the system of loci took no real effort. I feel confident I will remember this license plate for a very long time. If I ever have trouble recalling it immediately and effortlessly, I can go through the steps of seeing Heidi in the canoe on the roof rack, which will help me imagine the truck, and I will see myself attaching the signs to the back, at location C, which is the first letter of the plate. (This vehicle and owner have since been found.)
Agile Cheena .- Maple by the creek. ///trips.emerge.force
Bowling ball body Gizmo -... Young alder near the beach. ///mute.tides.quest
Canoeing with flowery Heidi -.-. Aspens in the roundabout. ///luck.rating.ages
Dancing with Tanzy -.. Elderberry. ///scans.tell.eaten
Duck . Candy flower. ///beard.libraries.begun
Found in dumpster bones ..-. Maple at the top of the stairs. ///frogs.cloud.jukebox
Gravity Smookler defy --. Young hemlock. ///asking.parks.length
Have you seen Norbs .... Skunk cabbage. ///could.tides.focus
Inky black .. Bridge over the creek. ///rocks.foster.richer
Just pocket bootsy jinxer .--- Large hemlock. ///kicked.banks.tooth
Killer cat Wolfgang -.- Baby hemlock on the stump. ///scales.pets.locked
Love Porter and Tess .-.. Cooley’s hedgenettle. ///slower.fries.loops
Magisterial ursine -- Large cedar northern corner. ///tides.wishes.skinny
Nemophila Kelsy -. Twisted maple. ///coats.depend.varieties
Obstinate olive’s overture --- Ferny ridge. ///friend.intend.vows
Poor Wakomu chained puppy .--. Knotted maple. ///stays.editor.tour
Quickly locate lost Fozzie --.- Old yew in bend. ///back.period.leaned
Run Skylark run .-. Three madronas at the top. ///lately.slope.forest
Sad boy Vik ... Two firs. ///look.ever.relate
Tyrannosaurus - Quintuple maple. ///under.throw.logic
Ultra black Dexter ..- Trilliums. ///lower.dash.parks
Very good boy Raphael ...- Tall trees and sky. ///wheels.desks.tree
Wind shakes forests .-- Glacial erratic. ///slick.front.vines
Xenophobic oak trees tremble -..- Maple marking trailhead. ///such.slope.tiny
Youngest dog Valentino Wordsworth -.-- Tall young fir. ///gift.nets.speaks
Zooming Wakomu jumps fence --.. Silver maple. ///notes.divide.heavy
When I was younger, people lived lives that went undocumented, for the most part. You would have your picture taken on your birthday, maybe. Of the few pictures and documents that I had from my early life, the vast majority have been lost, misplaced or discarded. My nephews are growing up in an era where everything is recorded. They are very accustomed to being photographed and videos with ubiquitous cell phones. Their school work is largely digital (I assume) and it is really no trouble at all to keep a record of pretty much every aspect of a child’s life these days. A child’s drawing goes up on the refrigerator for a while, but the picture taken of it gets stored in the cloud forever, or as long as someone keeps paying the subscription. My own life is highly documented, these days. Each year I generate hundreds of files for the missing pets we search for. My phone records my location almost all of the time, and there are ways to see where I was at any given moment. I have more than 150,000 photos and videos on my phone, and every single one automatically has the date, time, and location noted. I have an app on my Apple Watch that generates an ECG, showing my heart beat patterns. I also keep a written journal. Basically since the invention of the iPhone, my life is heavily documented and preserved. My life before an iPhone, I still remember many things, but the physical documentation is very thin. Now that I have the ability to make voice notes, capture notes with voice to text, shoot videos and snap pictures at any given instant, one could argue that a memory palace is no longer needed.
I would argue that the advent of ubiquitous auxiliary memory storage makes a memory palace more necessary and useful. For one thing, it exercises your mind. Maintaining a memory palace uses your brain in ways that you might be tempted to neglect when you can remember anything and everything with the aid of a cell phone, a mental prosthesis. Also, being able to recall things instantly can be a significant advantage. When I am working a case for a missing pet, I don’t want to be consulting a written file on my phone if I can avoid it. It may signal to the pet’s owner that I am distracted. Am I checking messages on my phone or looking at their pet’s information? Also, time can be a factor, when out on a search. Having details in my memory palace is faster than looking things up on my phone. My system of loci can also help me remember what I want to look up. If I have a terabyte of data, but I don’t know what it is, then how do I even know what to look up? The memory palace can serve as a directory to my digital memories. Also, my digital memories are prone to temporary failures, like if my battery dies, or if it’s raining and the wet screen on my iPhone makes it difficult or impossible to operate. My brain never crashes, for the most part.
Kelsy lives in my brain. I keep her with me all the time. My memory palace helps me stay connected to all of the dogs and cats I have known and loved over time. In the next ten years, I will suffer catastrophic losses. I will lose all of my children. Mu is 12 years old. Fozzie and Sky are 11 probably. Tino is almost 7. In the year 2033, it is very likely that I will have buried all of them on the edge of the forest. My dogs are my world. I don’t have any human children, but I have a hard time imagining that parents of human children love them more than I love my animal children. I was just talking to a client this evening, and she said that her missing cat was like her first child. She was having a difficult time dealing with the loss. I tried to give her hope that her child will be found. They say it is a tragedy for a mother or father to suffer the loss of a child, but it is a tragedy I know I will certainly face. Ten years from now, I could feel that my life is over if I have lost all of my children. The day I have to bury Valentino, I will wish I could be buried with him. Instead of being crushed by this coming tragedy, I have the opportunity to overcome time by keeping them all in my memory palace. Having a memory palace, being able to remember things better than I used to, it forces me to pay attention. Since I know these memories can be saved, I try to build better memories. Of the 150,000+ photos and videos on my phone, probably most of them are of Tino. He is very photogenic, and he has had his picture taken almost every day of his life. He thinks a cell phone taking his picture is perfectly normal and expected. When Tino is gone some day, I will be able to completely recreate a virtual Tino from the digital record. I will look at my pictures of him often. However, when Tino’s body dies, the spirit of Tino will always remain with me in my memory palace. For as long as I live, there will never be a day that I don’t spend with Tino. And Kelsy, and Mu, and all of my children. Stored away in my memory palace, among files and facts and irrelevant license plate numbers, will be detailed memories of the time I spent with my children. In the year 2033, I will walk through my memory palace, from the big maple at the southwest corner of Seahurst Park to the giant silver maple in Lake Burien School Park, and I will walk with all of my dogs and cats. They will always live in me.