I'm pretty sure that several of my childhood memories are actually memories of seeing myself in photos. I am equally sure that I remember the events shown - especially since the memories in question are ones I have had since... well, since they happened, of course, at some point in my childhood.
And yet the events probably never happened. Nonetheless, these untrustworthy memories can often be among the most sacred we have because they represent a time when we, as children, were somehow more authentic and unspoiled by life.
"But," I often hear, "the memory is so vivid. Of course it is true!"
I think that just because a memory is so vivid, it does not mean that it actually happened. It may well be a myth we have created for ourselves - a type of fiction that we have taken ownership of. It is important for our identity.
"That fiction belongs to me and I treasure it."
Well, I am not going to argue with that. I am already a storyteller and, perhaps, false memories make fiction writers of many of us.
Now -this afternoon, I went on a bicycle ride over the hills between Darmstadt and Heidelberg. Here are a couple of pics.
The colours, the sun on my skin, the sound of birds singing seemed to tug me back to some other place and time. But it was the spring perfume that pulled me firmly back to..... to what and to where? Was it some half-buried memory waiting to surface? I don't think so. I can only assume that the perfume evoked an emotion or a wonder that I once felt - perhaps as a child, when an association was formed between my feelings and the smell. Years later, that association had risen up to haunt me in the present.
On reflection, it seems to me that, cycling up and down and through the trees and flowers, it was the perfume that took me back to a very early emotional response that has no exact place in time. But these scents were living in my brain in the manner of a window left open to an emotional past. It was moving and disturbing at the same time and something writers may want to tap in to from time to time.
For me, today, it was the perfume from the flowers that took me away somewhere. There are other odours that can do this. What about the smell of burning wood, of freshly cut grass, of our mother's favourite perfume or our father's favourite aftershave? For me, the smell of an old book is really evocative - so much so that when I enter a second-hand bookshop my digestive system is often unbearably stimulated. And at that point, I rest my case.
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