I am a Time Traveler: Experiencing Memory
Salutations Trinitarians! Have you ever had the experience of traveling through time? It happens to me almost every day. Now, after my entry last week, you know I have ADD so I figure there’s no use trying to hide the fact that I am constantly journeying through the wonderland that my mind can sometimes be. I love to explore my daydreams and my memories, recount last night’s vivid dreams or insert myself into my favourite historical novels, and this my friends, is how I have mastered the art of time travel.
By: Laura Jensen
Like St. Augustine did before me, I place great importance on memory as it affects our present lives. It is through exploring my memories and my past experiences that I have come to know myself and why I am the way I am (not that I am anywhere near to conclusive knowledge in that subject—I am changing everyday!). St. Augustine wrote his Confessions with the belief that this is true, that in many ways, our past and memories can show us who we truly are. If this sounds a bit sketchy to you, consider the saying I’m sure you heard in many a high school history class: “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. If we understand that we are shaped by our sense experiences, and can look at our pasts critically, like St. Augustine did (for example, as he recounted childhood sins and impressions people made on him), then we can come to understand why we act and react certain ways to various stimuli and we can even make conscious efforts to change our behaviour for better or for worse.
For example, one of my most vivid memories is from when I was a little girl of about 7 or 8. My big sister and my mum had spent the morning tying my hair up in rags to curl it. That afternoon, my sister’s boyfriend (or “little friend” as my mum called him) came over and I was sent to fetch them both for dinner when the time came, reminded as I went down the stairs to “knock before you go in!” Well, little Tia with her hair still in rags, knocked once, twice, three times before calling her sister’s name and entering her bedroom. To my horror, I had walked in on my sister and her boyfriend making out. I turned on my heel, and my sister called me back to say: “Tia, don’t you dare tell Mom what you just saw or I will kill you!” Needless to say, I kept my lips sealed, and for some reason I always associated having my hair tied in rags with that horrific memory. I refused to ever let my mom and sister do it again, for fear that history would repeat itself, or even that I would simply be forced to remember it. I bottled this memory up for years before I spontaneously and rather courageously shared it with my mom last summer; we laughed about it and the weight that was lifted from my shoulders was surprising.
On the other hand, I have been known to intentionally seek after certain sensory stimulation for the very purpose of reliving a memory. There are songs on my iPod that can transport me back to particular places and even emotional states that I never want to forget. When I meet my parents at the airport for Christmas or summer break, I hug them and inhale deeply their respective colognes and I am instantly comfortable, warm, and back home again. The texture of my Poppa’s old cardigans under my fingers or wrapped around me like a blanket transport me back to the sanctuary of his lap as a little girl. Conversely, feed me a gingerbread latte and I am 7-years old again, baking Christmas cookies with my sister and throwing them all up later that night—I am practically transplanted back to the cold tile floor of the bathroom, heaving away: it’s not a pretty sight.
This tends to be the time of year that I become most nostalgic. Autumn brings cooler weather, old scarves and sweaters that smell of basement closets, cold eggnog in seasonal glasses, Sears Wishbooks that carry the very toys we included in letters to Santa years and years ago; all of these things have the potential to carry us back to our pasts. Maybe for some of us they bring up warm feelings of tradition and constancy. For others they might carry bitterness too, towards family members who don’t share these seasons with us anymore. But, whether these resurrections of our pasts are favourable or not, they are a part of who we are as individuals and will necessarily shape how we approach our futures, but God has given us human persons the beautiful ability to meditate on these things and to make choices that can affect how we proceed in life.
Last week in one of my favourite classes, we discussed the importance of our senses in relation to what our souls contain. Whether or not you are on the same page as me when it comes to experiencing your senses as triggers of memories and echoes of emotions that went along with those memories, I think it’s important to indulge in reflection on our pasts. If, like St. Augustine says, we can truly know ourselves by reflecting on our memories, and it is through knowing ourselves that we can know God more deeply, then reflecting on our memories and sharing our stories can be a beautiful way to experience God. Isn’t that why we share testimonies with each other? Through reflecting on past sin, past experience, past choices, we are better able to see where God wants us in our present, and perhaps where He wants to take us in the future.
Trinitarians, these are my musings this week. Thanks for listening—now, it’s your turn to talk back, and please, don’t shut up!
you are a beautiful soul.
As a Child I had somewhat of weird thing with my memory, from about 5-8 years old I believed that I just started existing. I seemed to not have much long or short term memory, so I thought that I was never born but that one day I just appeared. But I do have a odd connection between words and music. For example twice today I burst out singing “what’s love got to do with it” when some one says love. If you say grace I imediately sing a verse of a hymn”grace that is greater than all my sin”. There are tons of these trigger words that cause me to remember songs that I have sung.
I really liked this post Tia. As someone with a bad memory, I rely on songs and smells and pictures to remind me of my life’s experiences. It is in remembering these moments that I most treasure life, it is in remembering these moments that I see how I’ve grown and am inspired to continue to learn to be a better person. Memories are a gift.
I think it very ironic that today in mass (now almost a month since you posted this) Fr. Elton spoke about going back to our past blessed experiences and dwelling in those. He shared the image of a well that can be continuously drawn from. Drawing up grace and strength from God. I thought this was very cool, something I have done in some sense but not to the extent that I can imagine as you suggest, perhaps study one’s past to know oneself better. This is a great concept. Too bad we can’t be like Dumbledore and have a Pensieve to extract our thoughts for later revision. But perhaps this is what JKR was thinking when writing her books, her desire to be able to study past experiences!