I have found my own words, in writing, without memory of writing them.
The first time I can remember this happening was when I was first home from a summer of door-to-door sales. I opened up a tape recorder (because it was the year 2000, yo) to replace the batteries and found a tiny, folded note inside. It was my handwriting. I didn’t remember writing the note.
A few years later, I found a folded up note in my bedroom, tucked under my PC keyboard. I unfolded it to find a poem inside. It was my handwriting. I didn’t remember writing the poem.
This evening, I noticed that there was a draft sitting in my blog posts, unpublished.
“Hmm, what’s this?” I thought.
I opened it. I began reading.
Obviously, I can’t tell if it’s my handwriting, but as I have not given anybody else access nor told anyone the password to my blog dashboard, who else could be composing drafts in The Sciolist?
Was it you?!
Anyway, the draft post is below.
What do you make of it?
I don’t remember writing it. I don’t remember its purpose. It doesn’t seem to have a direction.
Have you ever had an experience like this (or perhaps, multiple experiences?!)?
Do you find record of your past self that you don’t recall?
“Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That’s the secretive way. That’s probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it. They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them, one day at a time, little by little.”
“Just take it bird by bird.” (referencing her dad teaching her brother how to
“If you don’t know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
“You’re going to feel like hell if you wake up some day and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging at the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions, and songs; your truth, your version of things, in your own voice. That’s really all you have to offer us and that’s also why you were born.”
Families
Families are hard hard hard no matter how cherished and astonishing they may be.
In all cases that any of us, specifically, were conceived and born. Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself and then you might as well start at the dinner table.
Sciolist in the City of Salt and Saints 
What you wrote that you don’t remember writing is really weird and intriguing. What does the dinner table have to do with forgiving? I guess we will never know! Your tags really make me laugh–“forgetfulness is fun,” etc. I’ve written (and also done) things I have no memory of, but maybe that comes with the territory of writing a lot. You are bound to forget something. Is it possible that your computer became voice activated and started recording something you were talking about and got it all garbled? Anyway, thanks for a post that made me smile.
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