Some days it seems that I have so many things to remember: Stop by the dry cleaner today or they are going to give away the clothes that have languished there for weeks! At the grocery store, don't forget the milk (again)! Remember to make that dental appointment.
At my desk at work, there are still more reminders: Report due Friday. Send that form to HR. Schedule next team meeting. Check in with supervisor. Work on agenda for committee.
Another kind of reminder is the representation of a relationship or special event. Photos of family and friends. A gift that now sits on a shelf and reminds me of a special occasion. A souvenir that calls to mind a memorable trip.
These reminders are intentional. I WANT to remember things associated with these reminders.
Lately, however, I've been finding joy in a different kind of memory-jogger. This kind is totally unplanned and without warning steals me away to a different place and time.
Going through a stack of old family photos, I came upon an old envelope. Looking at it, I instantly knew it was my great grandmother's handwriting. Until then, I didn't realize that I knew what my great grandmother's handwriting looked like.
I was instantly transported to the little duplex apartment where she lived when I was a child. I remembered the furniture and what it felt like to be there, visiting her along with my parents. What a delightful memory!
Another example: I rummaged around in the collection of socks and pulled out a pair I hadn't worn in some time. When I pulled on the second sock, I saw a faded blotch on the toe. It was the mostly-washed-out stain from light blue paint.
I could smell the paint in my daughter's first off-campus residence. I had traveled there to help her get settled before her college classes began. We painted until we were exhausted. We had planned to stay in her cute little cottage, but the paint smell, the summer heat, and the fact that the shower wasn't working drove us to a last-minute hotel room.
These sudden trips down memory lane are fascinating to me, intense with details and emotion. They make me wonder at the nature of and the vastness of our mental storehouse of pictures and smells and emotions.
3 comments:
It is funny the memories that pop up when we least expect them. It is also weird to be in a place where almost nothing reminds you of anything.
Since being here everything is new and plastic and different, and it doesnt' really remind me of anything. So I go through my day without anything that resembles anything familiar.
It isn't that where I am is so different, but it is just that it is enough different that I'm always in a bad de ja vou place, where nothing quite fits, but everything is vaguely familiar. I find this is an increasingly weird world that we're living in.
Yes, I would think that it would be disorienting to find nothing to spark a memory.
Perhaps we should have sent some sort of memory book with you so that you would have some sort of touchpoint!
totally! ha :o)
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