It's been a while. How have you been, what have you been up to? I'm good, not much has changed.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. Of course things have changed. In fact, everyday I change. My hair gets just a tiny bit longer, as do my finger and toe nails. I shed a little skin, ingest some new food, and inhale some new dust particles. My eyesight deteriorates just slightly each day. My skin sags more today than it did yesterday. I change my clothing often, and my hair changes from one day to the next - some days up, some days curly, etc. My facial expressions also change, depending on my mood. So, I suppose A LOT has changed since I last wrote in this blog.
There have been many other changes that may seem insignificant if I were to list them all, but they still have an impact on my life. For instance, if I were to tell you that I just read a great book - Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - that may seem pretty insignificant. However, while this book did not change my life significantly, it really changed the way I think about the immigrant experience. It has allowed me to be more empathetic and has increased my respect for immigrants. That is significant.
One of my favorite radio programs on NPR is Radio Lab (it's amazing, amazing - check it out at
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/). One of the shows was discussing memory, and there was a certain scientist featured. He talked about how every time we access a specific memory; we change the memory because our perspective has changed, so we remember it differently. He said that since every single time we access a memory, it changes, the purest memories we have are those we don't ever access. We basically recreate our past by trying to remember it. We are changing the story by telling it.
One of my earliest memories is of a neighbor kid getting his fingers caught in a windmill in his backyard. I would have been two years old, and in my memory I was holding a bottle. I haven't actually done any fact checking to see if this even happened, but the memory is there. When I was five, I remember watching my Mom slip on our front steps, which were covered in ice, and drop the baby carrier. In my five year old mind, I was sure my baby brother was covered in blood underneath the little afghan my mother had draped over him to keep the cold out. When I think about that moment now, when I remember it, I realize that the yarn used for the afghan had a little red in it, which confused my five year old mind into thinking my brother's fall down the front steps was fatal. So perhaps, some memories become more accurate, as perspective changes -
less true to the experience, but truer to reality.
There is much more about my childhood that I don't remember, but I'm sure the experiences are tucked away in my brain, helping me make decisions that affect my adult life. While my knowledge base has changed drastically, and my appearance has changed, I still feel like the same five year old girl who thought she saw her baby brother fall to his death. Now, every time I see my brother - who is currently 6'4" - there is a part of me that worries about his safety, even when there's no reason for worry. Whenever I walk on icy steps, I think about my mother losing her grip on the baby carrier, and I feel a twinge of panic. Even though my adult mind knows that my baby brother was fine, and was barely jostled inside his cozy little carrier, my gut reaction to those memories have not changed since I was five years old.
The emotions tied to the memories I hold have more significance in the way I think about them than the actual events. I suppose this is why I am , in a way, the same person I was at five years old. I have obviously changed a lot, but I
essentially
feel the same. Perhaps that's why memories from long ago, can still create butterflies in our stomachs, make us cringe with embarassment, or break down and cry. Whatever happened in reality doesn't really matter, the way we feel about our memories shapes us much more significantly. I don't think
that will ever change.
