The Time I Put a Nut Up My Nose

The beauty & weirdness of living. A Sunday excursion into memory.

The site of nuttery.

Dear Beautiful Friends,

Yesterday morning, over cappuccinos and almond croissants, I told my husband this random memory from when I was around five years old.

I was standing in my driveway, alone, waiting for a ride to school. The car would arrive with a parent driving and a few of my little kindergarten colleagues in the back, seatbelt-less. This was the late 1960s.

It must have been autumn, because I remember looking at the foliage debris on the driveway. I must have been waiting for several minutes because, during that time, I noticed all these little nut objects scattered at my feet. There I stood—with nothing but my imagination as my companion—and wondering, as all five-year-olds do when they see a collection of nut-like objects that are a specific size:

Will this nut fit up my nose?

I gave it a whirl. Boy, did it fit! It fit so well, it wouldn’t come out. Uh-oh. Panic ensued. What if the car arrived and there I was with a nut up my nostril? WHAT WOULD I DO, HOW WOULD I EXPLAIN IT? What kind of idiot picks a nut up off the ground and then decides to place it in her nostril?

🌰🌰

At this point in the story, Steve says:

“You could have gotten into the car and said nothing. Once they noticed, you’d say, ‘Oh, this thing. Yeah, it’s a nut. So?”

“Or, ‘my mom won’t let me get my nose pierced, so for now it’s a nut.”

🌰🌰

Looking back, I can still call up that electic-current panic, the rush of heat over my shoulders and face that I get today—as if being “caught” mid-experiment would have somehow endangered my existence. Is this a moment of conditioning being formed, in this exact memory? Is this why some early events implant themselves in our memories? And of course, there’s the eternal question re: memory: Is it even real? (No, and yet it’s a returning image, packed with sense references, so why not make it a story.)

Another possibility is the nut-in-nostril was nature’s lesson in spacial relations, something I’ve never been good at.

As it turned out, I did get that damn nut out in time. The car arrived, my nostrils were free of tree objects, but just like a seedling, this story implanted itself into my memory soil.

Why remember the nut-in-nostril moment?

Why do we remember the stories we do?

Could it also have been a debut experience of GIGANTIC RELIEF that was saying hello?

Life has a way of freeze-framing certain moments in time. Why does it catch the ones it does?

A related aside

It doesn’t matter how old, or young, I am, I always experience the memory coming from the same protagonist, one who is fully formed. I never feel immature or young when I visit a memory. Whether I’m five, 25, or 45—I always feel the same; the omniscient narrator has a consistent eye, this constant *beingness*. At five with a nut in my nostril, I felt as self-conscious and stressed as I might be at 59, losing my train of thought while leading workshop.

Whether I was first learning to spell my name (overwhelming!); sitting in my first post-college job interview at 22 (surreal), or discussing non-duality with a group of existential travelers at 60 (exciting and unnerving) I always feel the same “age.”

“Age” isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s “beingness” which sounds far flung but 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Is that how aliveness makes itself known? We experience the memory, or remember the experience without an attached age because aliveness doesn’t have an age. And the past doesn’t exist except from our current POV/narrator.

Do you notice this as well?

A second have-you-ever-noticed aside:

When you see a photo of a person you’ve always known as older than you—a relative or a celebrity—and in the photo/video they’re younger than you are now, do you still see them as older? I can’t see it any other way no matter how I try.

🌰🥜

• What’s your random nut-in-nostril early memory that circles back for a replay from time to time, with no apparent reason?

• What is the narrator’s POV in your memory narratives?