While writing my childhood memoirs, I totally lose track of the time. When my head comes up from the keyboard, I am disoriented, momentarily even forgetting which house I am in. You see I travel back in time, and find my youthful self in my classroom, bedroom or backyard. As soon as I am there, so many related memories come flooding back. In fact, at times I can’t type fast enough to get all of those memories down.
Early in the week, I asked one of my friends about some details of our early childhood classroom. ‘Oh I can’t remember that,’ she said. I then read her some of the memoir I’d been writing about that time. Several days later she spoke to me again, ‘It was funny Em, after you read to me it made me start thinking about that time, and now so many memories have come back!’
Early in the week, I asked one of my friends about some details of our early childhood classroom. ‘Oh I can’t remember that,’ she said. I then read her some of the memoir I’d been writing about that time. Several days later she spoke to me again, ‘It was funny Em, after you read to me it made me start thinking about that time, and now so many memories have come back!’
Many years ago, I worked as an EEG technician, running electroencephalograms to detect brain injury and evidence of seizures. My position was in a clinic at the local psychiatric hospital, where I saw both inpatients and outpatients. Many of the inpatients were convinced I was going to give ECT, Electroconvulsive Treatment, something that the hospital had retained as part of its battery of ‘fixes’ for severe depression. The fact that I was dressed like a technician, and there was a bed for patients to lie down, also didn’t help. The names EEG and ECT looked and sounded similar to some patients and I suppose me placing wires all over the patient’s head did nothing to quell their fears, no matter how many times I tried to calmly explain that my test was painless.
One day after arriving in the clinic, a highly anxious elderly patient became gradually convinced that he recognised me. 'I know you, you performed a tonsillectomy on me in 1936!' he finally shouted, his frail body suddenly developing muscles of steel. He lunged, holding me by the throat until the two stunned orderlies accompanying him were able to loosen his grip. It was obvious something about the setting and experience had stimulated that distant memory in him.
So while immersing in and then emerging from my writing this week, I’ve been pondering this. I have thought about pockets of memory and what evokes them. I’ve even decided that helping others access their precious memories may be the most important role of a memoir writer. A reader once told me, 'You know sharing your stories has just brought to mind, so many of mine!'
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