More Memories
After my earlier post, my mind has been wandering back to thoughts of yesteryear, of growing up, of family, and of school. . . childhood memories as seen through the filtered eyes of a youngster who experienced both the good, the bad and regrettably, sometimes the ugly.
Thankfully, my thoughts have been primarily on the good things but I am very cognizant that once I start down the path of remembering that I run the risk of veering off onto a side road, one full of things I would rather not remember. Despite this awareness, I do not want to stop remembering as I have huge blank spaces in my memory, and with each thing that I do recall, it is like adding that one little piece to the puzzle, helping to flesh out a history, helping me to understand a bit more of who I am and where I came from.
Memories are a funny thing… and can be triggered by a variety of stimuli. Smell is a big one for me…. there is nothing quite like the aroma of fresh baked bread to haul my “here and now” back to being a child and watching my grandmother punch the bread dough down, knowing that would not be too long before I would eating a warm slab of bread, slathered in homemade jam. Yum! The smell of a spicy cologne can flip me back in time some 33 years (yes, I know exactly how long ago!) to me sitting in the principals office, where he would be trying to talk to a stubborn seven year old who did not want to listen.
Other things which really can get me going are memories associated with sounds. In particular, nature sounds can get me going off in a pleasant direction – usually reminding me of time spent in the fields chasing cows, or treks through the bush in search of that elusive bird with the pretty song, or trying to find out where that chirping squirrel is hiding. On the unpleasant side of things, all one has to do is fire up a chainsaw to have me seeking the quickest exit as I am instantly thrown back to remembering the chainsaw accident I had. Music is, by far, the biggest auditory memory trigger for me. Many times I can be listening to a song and I can peg certain events around what year the song came out. Heh… every time I hear any song by Bob & Doug Mackenzie, I am instantly transported back to spending time with my good friend Julie and her fascination with Bob & Doug – lol – she was the first person I ever saw who helped me understand the true meaning of the word groupie.
Of course, sight, touch, and taste are the other senses I have not mentioned yet. Of these, I think we are bombarded constantly with sights that trigger memories as my drive down the old country road today proved – 95% of what I recalled at that time was associated with sight. In some ways, sight is a desensitized way of remembering – that is, I can cope a little easier with a memory if it is purely a “sight” induced one, but I have the feeling that some sight memories if combined with another sense would likely evoke a very strong memory. Actually maybe it is not so much the memory that it evokes, but for me the feelings and emotions which may accompany that memory.
Now this thought (I started combining sight with touch memories) definitely brings up some of the memories / events I think I would prefer not to remember and for that reason, I will end this blog entry right here. It’s not that this is a bad thing, but I think I would prefer to go back down the road of pleasant memories – like picking dandelions and peeling the stem back and placing them in water and watching them curl … or chasing bumblebees and catching them, placing them in jars … or walking in the woods, picking wild strawberries and blueberries, face puckering as you ate some that weren’t quite ripe…
Yeah. I’ll stop right here…
Bye for now.
