Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Memory Pebble

Our bathroom floor


Stealing the title of Rob´s blog for this post I muse on why I am writing all this with its off-subject posts about my life in the long-past.

The recent post on Wilfred Thesiger´s Cook set me off on this train of thought ... it is not about Kezia, her leukaemia or its treatment, Jaime, Nanda, the state of the UK health system etc etc - it is about something long in my past, something that was seemingly forgotten.

By some strange stimulus this week (which I don´t even recall - but possibly Peaches call for positive contributions to the the War Child blog book project for which I have written 24 hours in Darfur) the memory was triggered.

In our Blogger profile I state, amongst other things, that this would be a record for Kezia in the future. She became ill and started treatment at the age of 2 years and 1 month, before her human capacity of memory had developed. Now, at almost 4 years old this capacity must be developing (my own first memory dates from when I was 3.x). What a strange first memory she may have - I wonder what it will be.

In our blog profile I stated that one reason for starting this was to create a record for Kezia to read when she is older. To learn what she went through. A proxy memory for her. And for Jaime too. It has also become a record of some of my own memories which, I hope will occasionally entertain you, dear reader, or give you food for thought and which in the future (unless the google servers are less than immortal) will also give Kezia and Jaime some knowledge about their father, his life and emotions, when they are of an age to begin to understand our fucked-up adult world.

Memories are events which become forgotten if not somehow recorded consciouslly, sub-consciouslly, or on paper in a diary or a blog.

However, just like the pebbles in our bathroom floor, there are gaps between them. Sometimes we lose a memory pebble. But sometimes we think we have lost them and they reappear and creep back into our consciouness from the garden shed or depths of some wardrobe to rejoin their place in the line of pebbles going up our bathroom floor.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Angus, I envy your bathroom floor--really.

FYI, The origin of "Memory Pebble" has nothing to do with memories, per se, but rather with a complicated story my son wrote when he was six, summarized here:

http://rryan.blog.uvm.edu/2006/05/memory_pebble_saves_the_world.html

"Memory Pebble" was the name of one of the characters.

By the way, it's interesting to hear what the Outside World thinks of Barack Obama. From inside the Disneyland gates, here, it seems as if H. Clinton is well-meaning but more of the same, whereas Obama represents something more hopeful--a chance to mobilize grassroots enthusiasm for the greater good, or something. Put that in your socialist pipe and smoke it.

Angus said...

Great story!

I think our bathroom is my favourite room in our house - maybe I'll take some more photos of it for you! To make you really envious!