Marilynne Robinson writes that ‘memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it’.
Sometimes that seems true for me about my memories of Nigeria. However good the memories are, they are sometimes tinged with a sense of loss and many painful goodbyes. Sometimes I think that many of my memories (especially as a child) are shaped by photos, but we usually don’t take photos of the depressing days, so does this give an inaccurate record of what we remember?
Sometimes that seems true for me about my memories of Nigeria. However good the memories are, they are sometimes tinged with a sense of loss and many painful goodbyes. Sometimes I think that many of my memories (especially as a child) are shaped by photos, but we usually don’t take photos of the depressing days, so does this give an inaccurate record of what we remember?
This is one of my favourite family photos from our early days in the south of Nigeria. It must have been a Sunday because in those days my sister and I only wore dresses (and shoes for that matter) on a Sunday. My dad’s so skinny too... when we returned from Nigeria after the first two years my aunt cried when she saw my dad because he was so thin! Guess I blinked. And yes, I looked like a boy... blame it on my mum’s haircutting... she says it was so short because of the heat, but seriously, I was called ‘fine boy’ in the market for about 3 years of my life... or else I needed my ears pierced like all other Nigerian baby girls...
--
Or is it the forgetting, but not wanting to that brings the sense of loss? Dylan Thomas writes...
--
Or is it the forgetting, but not wanting to that brings the sense of loss? Dylan Thomas writes...
"My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows."
And Robinson again on remembering people we love...
“There is so little to remember of anyone – an anecdote, a conversation at a table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming habitual fondness not having meant to keep us waiting long.”
“There is so little to remember of anyone – an anecdote, a conversation at a table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming habitual fondness not having meant to keep us waiting long.”
Anyway, back to the short term memory cramming...
