Good morning!
Well that was a short blog holiday.It was my youngest daughter, Phoebe's 23rd birthday yesterday, how did that happen? She had her friend's party on Friday night and we will have lunch with her today. I'm looking forward to that.
I had thought I might take myself to Abbotswick for a 24 hour break to reflect on the huge input of new creative ideas for Arc going forward,but such is life that at the last moment I changed my mind. Olly and I have been promising to sort out our loft now for some weeks so I decided that it really couldn't be put off any longer. I remembered that as is always the case for me, a different focus would allow my unconscious mind to carry on processing the creative ideas whilst I concentrated on the material world!
Now our loft is actually very well organised. Olly boarded it last summer and everything is positioned in order and fully labeled, however there is still a huge amount of 'stuff', some of which we will never use again and some which we always keep for sentimental reasons: kids toys, letters, diaries, books, clothes, camping gear, tools, Christmas decorations. You name it - I am sure you can.
After much dumping of stuff in the morning I set too on my own for the afternoon whilst Olly escaped to Leyton Orient for a match they thankfully won. Life is always that bit brighter when the 'O's win!
Radio 4 is a great companion and I particularly enjoy woman's hour at 4pm, this time with guests including Louise Hinch and Shirley Williams reminiscing on the vaguaries of the recently departed Iron Lady. So with black bin bags in hand I made the intrepid mountain climb into the loft once again.
The easy bits for me are the old pots and pans, the never-to-be-used again chocolate fountain and the good old resilient fondue set. I can be as ruthless as they come about those things. Progress is light and quick, and the skip fills itself with ease.
BUT....... the moment I happen upon those boxes of
memorabilia, diaries, old cards, letters, mummy and daddy pictures and notes to and from the girls I am transported into a different time and place. As I tackle the first labeled blue plastic toy box I am reminded of the opening line of LP Hartley's novel the Go-Between 'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'. They certainly do.
So I spend two or three hours pouring over things, fragments of our life with small and growing children. Funny cards and 'sorry' letters, poems, certificates, reading diaries, school reports and then the inevitable mounds of photos, some stuck to each other from the damp of several moves. Who are the people in them? in these moments of captured time, memories erupt from the deepest locations in my mind and again vividly I recall a journey, a holiday, a 6th or 18th birthday party. Did I really worry about my wrinkles at 30!
The overall effect is one of collage, an exhibition of a life lived. Fragments that each in their own way travel me on some unexpected trajectory where I can almost smell and feel that moment. And of course with those moments come laughter and tears. Mostly tears. I go through these boxes slowly and I am grateful that I keep them, because without them I am simply reliant on the distortions of my own memory with the filters now firmly placed on my interpretations. What happens if I get dementia and can't remember?
Its hugely cathartic of course, and then as I pack them back in and close the lid until the next time there is a feeling of satisfaction and a recognition that every life is built with these tiny moments and fragments of experience.The broad strokes of memory and historical retelling are rebelled against by these tangible artefacts and evidence. Its a bit of an excavation into soul and heart really.
Blotchy face and remembering my young children, now 26 and 23 I give up and go and have a bath and make a coffee.
When Olly got home, happy from the 'O's success, we got fish and chips and found ourselves talking about memory. I have always been a diary writer, since I got my first Letts green Brownie diary when I was six. Admittedly those early entries are pretty spartan, but at least I made a start on what has been a lifelong pursuit. I rarely read them now but when I do, much as with the letters and cards I am immediately taken back to that specific day. Often I really do wonder who on earth it was who cried her eyes out at 17 listening to the Beatles and writing poems for a love unrequited.
Its funny. I need to order my life through memories carried for me in these different little note books. They are my friends in much the that way my books are. I guess they are a way of knowing that I have lived, and hoping one day that my great grandchildren and their children will understand themselves maybe a little more through reading them.That my cultural influences and thoughts will be captured in a time that transports them to a place unknown for them.
Olly does his remembering in a very different way. For him its all tucked away in his head and he can bring to mind great detail of events and people at will. Indeed I have often relied on him to tell me again something or some experience that I have forgotten. He is a writer and a storyteller and a great proponent of the oral tradition. His memories are captured in unique stories, and he simply has to recall this to take him back into vivid spaces.
The area of debate was about the accuracy of remembered events compared to the physical evidences. He rightly points out of course that neither his way nor mine is entirely without contamination. A birthday card written full of love and kind words might have come just after a dreadful row with someone, and the words there in apparent physical evidence are in fact an act of omission of the actual circumstances. I see that. Its like the photographs depicting happy people smiling into the camera on the beach when they have just been at each other's throats.
I guess its all just an individual thing. For me the diary, letter, photo, card still conjur another world and time, and yes maybe they are all small distortions, but they remain locked in their frozen time capsule forever. The relationship between past present and future continue to consume.
So memory and its intrigue has fascinated people throughout time. I suppose in the end we all want some way of testifying that we have lived. I like my way a lot.
Have a lovely Sunday.
Well that was a short blog holiday.It was my youngest daughter, Phoebe's 23rd birthday yesterday, how did that happen? She had her friend's party on Friday night and we will have lunch with her today. I'm looking forward to that.
I had thought I might take myself to Abbotswick for a 24 hour break to reflect on the huge input of new creative ideas for Arc going forward,but such is life that at the last moment I changed my mind. Olly and I have been promising to sort out our loft now for some weeks so I decided that it really couldn't be put off any longer. I remembered that as is always the case for me, a different focus would allow my unconscious mind to carry on processing the creative ideas whilst I concentrated on the material world!
Now our loft is actually very well organised. Olly boarded it last summer and everything is positioned in order and fully labeled, however there is still a huge amount of 'stuff', some of which we will never use again and some which we always keep for sentimental reasons: kids toys, letters, diaries, books, clothes, camping gear, tools, Christmas decorations. You name it - I am sure you can.
After much dumping of stuff in the morning I set too on my own for the afternoon whilst Olly escaped to Leyton Orient for a match they thankfully won. Life is always that bit brighter when the 'O's win!
Radio 4 is a great companion and I particularly enjoy woman's hour at 4pm, this time with guests including Louise Hinch and Shirley Williams reminiscing on the vaguaries of the recently departed Iron Lady. So with black bin bags in hand I made the intrepid mountain climb into the loft once again.
The easy bits for me are the old pots and pans, the never-to-be-used again chocolate fountain and the good old resilient fondue set. I can be as ruthless as they come about those things. Progress is light and quick, and the skip fills itself with ease.
BUT....... the moment I happen upon those boxes of memorabilia, diaries, old cards, letters, mummy and daddy pictures and notes to and from the girls I am transported into a different time and place. As I tackle the first labeled blue plastic toy box I am reminded of the opening line of LP Hartley's novel the Go-Between 'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'. They certainly do.
So I spend two or three hours pouring over things, fragments of our life with small and growing children. Funny cards and 'sorry' letters, poems, certificates, reading diaries, school reports and then the inevitable mounds of photos, some stuck to each other from the damp of several moves. Who are the people in them? in these moments of captured time, memories erupt from the deepest locations in my mind and again vividly I recall a journey, a holiday, a 6th or 18th birthday party. Did I really worry about my wrinkles at 30!
The overall effect is one of collage, an exhibition of a life lived. Fragments that each in their own way travel me on some unexpected trajectory where I can almost smell and feel that moment. And of course with those moments come laughter and tears. Mostly tears. I go through these boxes slowly and I am grateful that I keep them, because without them I am simply reliant on the distortions of my own memory with the filters now firmly placed on my interpretations. What happens if I get dementia and can't remember?
Its hugely cathartic of course, and then as I pack them back in and close the lid until the next time there is a feeling of satisfaction and a recognition that every life is built with these tiny moments and fragments of experience.The broad strokes of memory and historical retelling are rebelled against by these tangible artefacts and evidence. Its a bit of an excavation into soul and heart really.
Blotchy face and remembering my young children, now 26 and 23 I give up and go and have a bath and make a coffee.
Olly does his remembering in a very different way. For him its all tucked away in his head and he can bring to mind great detail of events and people at will. Indeed I have often relied on him to tell me again something or some experience that I have forgotten. He is a writer and a storyteller and a great proponent of the oral tradition. His memories are captured in unique stories, and he simply has to recall this to take him back into vivid spaces.
The area of debate was about the accuracy of remembered events compared to the physical evidences. He rightly points out of course that neither his way nor mine is entirely without contamination. A birthday card written full of love and kind words might have come just after a dreadful row with someone, and the words there in apparent physical evidence are in fact an act of omission of the actual circumstances. I see that. Its like the photographs depicting happy people smiling into the camera on the beach when they have just been at each other's throats.
I guess its all just an individual thing. For me the diary, letter, photo, card still conjur another world and time, and yes maybe they are all small distortions, but they remain locked in their frozen time capsule forever. The relationship between past present and future continue to consume.
So memory and its intrigue has fascinated people throughout time. I suppose in the end we all want some way of testifying that we have lived. I like my way a lot.
Have a lovely Sunday.
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