The Random Nature of Remembering
We do not remember the events of our lives along a chronological continuum but rather in the fits and starts of associated or triggered memories. After years of having no thought of your long-dead grandmother’s penchant for baking, you will walk into a shop and the precise cinnamon-laden scent of your grandmother’s peach cobbler will suddenly open the door to the memories of her kitchen. An hour later you will pass an anonymous but familiar-looking stranger on the street and your college dorm room, complete with your obsessively clean (or grubby) roommate will come to life behind your eyes.So it is with the stuff of memories. A sight or a scent or even a familiar experience will open doors in your mind, trotting out the experiences of your past not in their order of appearance but in association with their triggering phenomena. And so our histories, while they happen along a rigid chronological continuum, are remembered randomly, in fits and starts, in bits and pieces, and often at the most unexpected times.
This blog began as a cathartic exercise. Vulnerable after suffering a trauma, wrenching memories of my childhood through early adulthood began to surface unbidden, memories I thought I had laid to rest as a result of five years of intense therapy.
I began to write out these memories, writing nearly one every day for two months, until 46 independent entries had been written and my sense of peace, equanimity and balance returned. Those 46 memories form the basis, the foundation of this blog.
To access them, click this link. This is the first of the 46 stories. When you get to the end of the page, click on the "older post" button and it will take you to the next in the series.