I have a thought about this having travelled so much in my life, and having immigrated a couple of times, moving here and there all over the world (39 countries). What i have noticed is you can’t return to a moment (including the geographical element) from your past. If you do, you’ll likely find it creepy or disturbing or at the very least nostalgic in a not very good way. I believe it best to keep all the elements of a memory in your head or in a story. And that’s what we can do as writers.
Thanks for commenting, David, and I'm glad it's a question you've also been considering.
Every time we visit a memory, we're actually visiting the memory of the last time we thought about it, so in essence we're always travelling further and further away from the reality of that experience, with more and more opportunity to distort the remembrance. I think about this a lot.
Hi Belinda. yes - that is entirely true - in much the same way as our physical body recreates itself constantly, as cells die and are replaced, and we slowly become..... a version of a version of ourselves...
The malleability of memory is a mystery we live within.
One of those existential questions we all ask ourselves, very eloquently put.
I have a thought about this having travelled so much in my life, and having immigrated a couple of times, moving here and there all over the world (39 countries). What i have noticed is you can’t return to a moment (including the geographical element) from your past. If you do, you’ll likely find it creepy or disturbing or at the very least nostalgic in a not very good way. I believe it best to keep all the elements of a memory in your head or in a story. And that’s what we can do as writers.
Thank you Susan, that feels like wise advice.
For me, you describe that yearning and mixture of fear of finding everything changed, so succinctly.
Thank you so much.
I want to go home to Cape Town from Johannesburg but it’s not practical or possible.
Yet….lol
Thank you for reading and commenting, Carol. I hope you find your way home, in more than one sense of the word 💕
From your lips to God’s ears, lovely lass.💙
Such a good question, Belinda....
I just wrote, and posted, about one of those "places I only know now in an increasingly unreliable mind’s eye."
London, in fact, 1978 - and I have never been back.
Having now written about it, and tapped that rich vein of memory, should I return some time soon, in person?
Like you, I have not decided.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thanks for commenting, David, and I'm glad it's a question you've also been considering.
Every time we visit a memory, we're actually visiting the memory of the last time we thought about it, so in essence we're always travelling further and further away from the reality of that experience, with more and more opportunity to distort the remembrance. I think about this a lot.
Hi Belinda. yes - that is entirely true - in much the same way as our physical body recreates itself constantly, as cells die and are replaced, and we slowly become..... a version of a version of ourselves...
The malleability of memory is a mystery we live within.
At least there is Poetry in it.
Best Wishes - Dave :)