I'm Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

A colleague entered as I was trying to write the episode you're listening to.

She announced, this has been sitting in my office for a month.

Ceremoniously, she laid my trench coat, pinched between her fingers like an old dishcloth, on the rear of a nearby

chair by a bookshelf.

Ah, there it is, I said to her turning back.

I have a horrible habit lately of leaving my personal items behind me in rooms, restaurants, and store counters,

where I'm often caught back by a cashier. The other day, I walked away from my phone at a grocery

store checkout line. I want to believe I am materially shedding myself of the physical plane

and achieving some transcendence of spirit. At least, that's what I've been telling my family.

Yet, I am looked on with pity as I run around the house asking if anyone has seen my glasses, my running shoes,

my office keys, my gloves, my, my truth is, I do not mind misplacing items, but friends I love

and cherish landscapes are proving harder to retrieve from the

forefront of my mind. Let me not misrepresent. I'm not suffering a crisis. I'm just suddenly aware

the world is receding, and I want to hold it close as long as possible.

Today's poem, an homage to poet Robert Haas,

suggests one possible way of retaining is to live in the music of our existence,

where memories, though fleeting,

and at our peripheries, still carry indulgences of delight.

Morning in a City by Jay May Burizo

The dilemma always is forgetting.

The notion that details cancel out the affect of a moment, beauty concealed by

...