Today it’s time to welcome guest writer and friend, Amy from Never True Tales, to Fangirl Sings the Blues. I’ve known Amy for over three years and we chat regularly, but have never met in the flesh. We exchange words. I feel as though I know her as well – if not better – than a friend I might catch up with face-to-face. It’s a strange old cyberworld we live in, but you can meet fabulous people through the wiring of your internet cabling.
She met me after all (just joking, but she knows this).
Without further ado (or a’don’t) here be the wise words of Amy from over the seas. I have written a post in neighbo(u)rly exchange, and it’s here. Thanks for sharing your words at FSTB, matey:
Remembering the Mundane
One of my first crystal clear memories–not a borrowed one, not a hazy one–is of standing on the deck of the neighborhood pool. It’s bright out; I have to squint as I stare at the water and the white concrete under my feet. My Snoopy and Friends swimsuit is faded from summer sun and chlorine, and blasting from the pool’s stereo system speakers is The Greatest American Hero’s Believe It or Not.
It’s 1982.
Which makes me six. (Old to some of you reading this blog, no doubt, and young to others.) I hear I’m walking on air and I step out, revel in that single moment of suspended animation, and then hit the water with a splash.
And then…that’s it. No drama, no life changing event. Not even a close call or an interesting anecdote. So why is that ordinary afternoon–that single moment of California sun and cool water–seared into my mind? What causes some memories to fade and others to catch and stick, burrowing into the consciousness?
I have heard that scent is the single most compelling memory booster, and I can understand why. Certain smells take me back to isolated places and times: wood smoke in the fall, bridle leather, the particular type of plastic coating combined with paper that comprise brand new book covers. Certain foods. But my sharpest memories, the ones buried deepest for whatever reason, are more often auditory.
The rumble of a jet engine–not just any jet engine, but a certain type–takes me instantly back to my grandmother’s garden, on hands and knees before the rich soil of the flower beds, spade in hand, sun on the back of my neck. Peace. Security. Blue skies marred only by the fading white trail of a plane circling to land at John Wayne Airport.
Or:
Whitney Houston belting out I Will Always Love You through the grainy car stereo speakers of my parents’ old Ford Blazer. Snow falling heavily as I drive myself to high school basketball practice. The windshield wipers frantic swipe across my field of vision.
One certain Bananarama song I listen to with baby Nate in the back seat. Fatigue. Picnic lunches at parks. A blue and white striped diaper bag. Peanut butter and jelly and the smell of cut grass.
The sound of crickets, paired with twilight, followed by a stunning Milky Way. Sleeping outside on cots. Whispering to my sister in the dark. The chilled cotton of my pillow hitting my warm cheek.
Laughter on a video clip. The Christmas tree the brightest thing in the room, messing up the lighting in the film. Shadows. Calvin dancing in the living room in pajamas. Nate’s face taking up the entire frame. Baby Toby asleep on Charlie’s chest.
Nothing important is preserved in these auditory files. These are not the main events of my life. They’re the between times, the fillers, the moments that pass without pomp or circumstance. There’s no reason to remember any of this ten years from now. 50. 100. But I will. The same goes for the smell of chocolate chip cookies, taking me back to after-school snack time in my mother’s kitchen, my aunt’s stuffing at Thanksgiving, and the sight of blue sky viewed through leafy tree limbs, transporting me instantly to the oak outside our first home.
But perhaps this is precisely why our senses preserve the mundane as well as the eventful when our conscious minds do not: maybe we horde these wisps of memory because no one else will, and we understand its shelf life:
one, solitary lifetime.
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4 Responses to Remembering the Mundane
What’s the Bananarama song that reminds you of this time with Nate as a baby? I need to know, *g*
You know this title, ‘remembering the mundane’? These wisps of memory, as you’ve described them, are as important to us as the eventful scenes of our past. I think they remind us of the basics in life -- that simplicity is often as important as the main drama (Toby asleep on Charlie’s chest compared -- say -- to the ‘big ticket item’ of your wedding day).
And that, even though we plan and prepare for the main eventful stuff, it’s the ‘mundane’ that we should never take for granted and often constitutes more of ‘who we really are’.
For the record, my fave auditory mem of yours is the windscreen wipers and snow and that idea -- you in a hurry, but the environment does what it always does. And for me, auditory memories are much stronger too.
Thanks for this. Contemplative entries are always great for the soul. *hugs*
Lovely piece Amy! And, as always, you’ve caused me to stop and think. Each of us carries around an enormous store of memories. They are ours alone, gathered during our lifetime. Even if the memory is shared with another it remains uniquely ours, from our own peculiar perspective. Sometimes I’m tortured by the memories that come all too easily -- you know, the ones that are embarrassing, negative, hurtful. Then there are the memories that are like little off-cuts from a bolt of fabric. The first successful dive into a swimming pool, watching my Nana cook toast under the grill, going through customs -- by myself -- at Munich, picking raspberries with my aunt, getting toothpaste in my eye and crying for my Mum, the smell of my primary school drink bottle. If we only remembered the “big ticket items”, there’d be lots of space in our brains! It’s these little things that do fill in the gaps, that warm our hearts and remind us of the journey we’re on. Thanks Amy!
Simple smells often remind me of events too. Although, my heightened olfactory sense has made for miserable pregnancies.
Oh Amy! How I love this! Mundane memories, those are the best to remember.
My first memory ? It’s not even ‘real’, it’s a nightmare I had when I was in preschool…random.