In their way, these last weeks were not unhappy. Joy had left us, and once again—as in the earliest days—we could turn for comfort only to each other. The wheel had come full circle: once again we were together in the little end room at home, shutting out from our talk the ever-present knowledge that the holidays were ending, that a new term fraught with unknown possibilities awaited us both.

(Warren Lewis, on the last days of his brother C. S. Lewis, from his Memoir published in The Letters of C. S. Lewis [1966].)

Every year at this time I note the anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis in 1963. There’s been a lot of speculation in recent years as to exactly when it was that Western Civilization began to collapse. Some choose the year 1968, the year the Counterculture came into its own in America, but others fix the date in 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated. I tend to go with 1963, but because that was the year we lost Lewis, not Kennedy.

One way or the other, it’s been downhill ever since.

From the University of Notre Dame, this article on recent scientific findings that indicate there’s a genuine physiological reason why we so often forget what we’ve come for, when we go from one room to another.

New research from psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses.

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains.

“Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”

I expect passing through Wardrobes has a similar effect.