Next Comes the P.O.V.

Where am I in the enduring memories? Am I always included in the action or has imagination co-opted this re-collection of life experienced second hand? When I reflect, superficially making certain something was actually present in real sequence, the intention is to savour the details later—in refraction, these scenes of memory appear as they do in cinema.

With an erudite imagination serving as film editor, I experience history first-hand: a backyard filled with enormous snow banks, our living room at Christmas, the upstairs hallway, the auditorium with the towering red velvet curtains filled to capacity in grade school—the recognition of place is instant. Then I see myself & immediately a feeling is re-captured. Typically, my senses are spread like a late afternoon sky, hanging in some limbo yet caught in the gentle tumble of stored emotion.

Memories are stored differently if I am ashamed to recall them. These scenes arrive suddenly, with a zap & there is no predicting their occurrence. They have a trigger, though it is often haphazard. When I suddenly recall something shaming, the same flush accompanies the memory as when it first occurred but time has diluted the intensity. I suspect imagination, operating in its most sinister mode, works in cahoots with memory in these instances. My sense of reason always comes to the rescue: it could not have been that bad.

Where is my ego in all of this painful remembering?

{Artwork by David Hochbaum}