"If you take a book with you on a journey,...an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it...yes, books are like flypaper--memories cling to the printed page better than anything else." — Cornelia Funke (Inkheart)
Inkheart is pretty much exactly my kind of literature. Yes, it's a fantasy novel, and I do enjoy some fantasy (although definitely not all fantasy, since much of it is badly written, in fact the only fantasy I actually enjoy is Tolkien, Rowling, and now Funke) but more than it being fantasy, it is written for a younger audience (12-16) and it is really really really well written. I mean really. Well, look at the quote. It is, in fact so well written, that the author actually succeeded in writing a book about the significance of books, about characters that are so well written they actually come to life, and about a family that loves literature so much they actually lose themselves in it. (And may I insert my plug here, there is no way the movie could have captured the brilliance of the writing, so just read the book.)
But this post is not about book recommendations. It's about memories which cling to things. Memories do cling to books, they also cling to smells and music and even certain pains.
An example: This evening as I was driving home from work I hit the scan button on my car radio and heard the intro to the song "All That She Wants is Another Baby". It didn't matter how quickly the radio kept scanning past the song, I was already taken back. Suddenly my mind was in the passenger seat of the Milne's van, driving up to youth conference in Winnepeg. Jenny was insisting that we listen to her new cassette, and so for two and a half hours we listened to Ace of Base. Do you remember that album? No doubt the song is already running through your mind. I am pretty sure the entire album only had 4 songs on it, two of them sounding identical to two others, making one mass of 90's Euro Techno beat and whining female vocals about... what were those songs about? Doesn't matter, my mind had already moved on. That was the conference during which the family with whom Jenny and I were staying locked us out the night of the dance because we weren't in by 9 pm. We stood outside their door knocking and ringing for 45 minutes, in February in Manitoba. Do you know what it's like in February in Manitoba? The next morning we had to go to the testimony meeting they always hold for the youth after such a conference, and everyone was crying and talking about how they were suddenly going to start being nice to their parents and stop smoking pot. I used to always wonder what was wrong with me in those meetings. And then we were on our way back south, to balmy Northern Minnesota, and Jenny started to put her Ace of Base cassette back in, but I played the "Sunday Spiritual" card, and our youth leader mediated by choosing the country music station. Never have I been so relieved to listen to country music.
The other day I made myself some blueberry muffins. I splurged on a mix, the kind with the can of real blueberries seperate from the mix powder. As soon as I opened up the can I was back at my apartment at Univeristy of Minnesota. I forgot how I practically lived off of blueberry muffins when I was there. Not because I couldn't make anything else, and on my scholarship and stipend I could certainly afford to eat more than muffins. But I didn't want to. For the first time in my life I could eat blueberry muffins without having to share them with anyone. It's the small luxuries that I love about my selfish lifestyle.
Today another memory has been flooding back into my mind. You see, I have lousy knees. It's not just that I can't run, or that occasionally they swell up, its that when I try to run they actually give out (even when I was at my skinniest, they just sort of fold underneath me), and when they do swell up, the swelling travels all the way to my ankles, and I can barely even walk. Like today. And with the pain comes memories or where I was and what I was doing when I felt the pain previously. There was a day on my mission that the pain was pretty intense and my companion and I were running for a train to zone conference, and I pushed my running pretty hard in order to make that train, and I paid for it for the next 3 days. Or there was the time that it acted up the day of a concert, while I was at BYU. And I mistakenly went to the Health Center, and they told me I was going to die of a blood clot, so I went to the hospital and they told me it was a cyst, and it would go away. I made it to the concert that night, but as one of the "Amazon Women of the back row" (that's right, I'm one of the tall girls) I was still in enough pain that I fell off the steps. Yup. I'm one of those as well. And then, most vivid of all, was the time my knee rebelled against me while my sister's ex-step-father-in-law was in town. (That's right, do the math on that) He was a Chiropractor. I mean was as in his lisence was revoked at some point for a number of reasons, including just being weird. But he insisted that he could help my knee, because after all the knee is a joint, and so is your back. Or at least, it all has something to do with bones and cartilage and ligaments, right? And so I laid down and he poked and prodded at my knee, and his determination was that I needed (kneeded?) an aura adjustment. That's right. My knee problems were related to other stresses in my life and all he had to do was adjust my aura. He rubbed his hands together karate kid style, and then carefully hovered them over my knee, sending his healthy aura build up into my unhealthy knee aura, the whole time speaking in a calming voice, asking me to think about the things in my life that were causing me stress, and telling me to "slowly spell the words out in your mind" Well. I can tell you exactly what was causing me stress at that moment in my life. I just didn't know if he spelled his name with a "C" or a "K". He finished adjusting my aura, and I raved about how much better I already felt, lest he feel the need to adjust anything else. It is quite possibble that my knee problems are realted to other stresses in my life. After all, the concert was towards the nd of the semester and I was prepping for finals, and the zone conference was the one when we had to tell the mission president what the elders were really doing with their time. I could even pinpoint a few stresses in my life now that might manifest themselves as knee pain. But I highly doubt that the cure is to be found in aura adjustments. I'm just saying.
So now I am wondering what other memories could be drudged up from pains and scents and songs. What about the memories I want, the important memories? Is there a trigger that would help me remember college algebra? I used to be really good at that, now I can't remember how to multiply sqare roots. Is there some key that will remind me where I put that last box of clothes when I moved three years ago? Most of all, I need to know which scent or scar or song will remind me what is was like to spend a minute without a care in the world. Where my biggest concern was finding enough dandelions to play "flower fairies" and hoping that there would still be a swing free at recess. Do you remember? Can you help me remember?
6 comments:
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign.
How can you complain about the remarkable musicianship that is Ace of Base? I mean, come on.
The one that gets me is "Standing outside the fire" Garth Brooks. I can smell the cigarette smoke on the bus with the mixed aroma of anti freeze and beer that the bus driver used to try to cover up the cigarette smell.
Oh dear me, baby bop loves barney. Or is it billy bob loves charlene?
I remember moments by the perfume in the air. Whether it is the smell of fall(the crisp air, smell of leaves) which always recalls to me the thrill I feel at the first days of school or rose perfume which I wore throughout my entire engagement and retired with the birth of Ben. When I smell roses I always remember that glorious time. I suggest going out on a spring afternoon laying in a field of flowers (where else do flower fairies live after all?)and breathing in those simple days!
Love it! I have a memory of Ace of Base too. I was in seventh grade on a skating field trip. I was trying to look cool and impress the manly seventh grade boys while trying not to fall on the ice. "All that she wants" was playing in the background while I floundered around the rink staying as close to the wall as I could with out looking like an idiot. ah, junior high. Wouldn't do it again for a million years. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Just today, while walking through the mall, I suddenly got all giddy and happy. It took me a second, but I realized that someone nearby was wearing the cologne that Tom always wore while we were dating/engaged/first married (you know, that two weeks). I'm sure the poor random college student that was wearing it was a little weirded out by the 30 year old frumpy mom with three kids who was looking at him funny.
A few months after Zach was finally done with all of his hospital stays, I visited a friend who had a baby. The smells, sounds, etc of the maternity ward were harder to deal with than I thought they would. I almost had to turn around and go back.
The sound of swings is what calls me back to the good ol' days. I think my playground had particularly squeeking swings. We lived across the street from a park in my last house that had really squeeky swings. Tom always wanted to go out and WD-40 them, but I liked them. The smell of dandelions is a positive one for me, too.
I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes and I am happy now, living without you. I loved you, oh, oh, o-oh.
I think I had that album memorized.
I dated a Swedish foreign exchange student my senior year of high school who professed to know Ace of Base personally. What a memory you have triggered there!!!
There is a perfect temperature and humidity that feels exactly like being in love. I felt it at BYU when the pink flowers bloomed from all the trees. I felt in in Michigan after all that gunky snow was finally melted away and the baby ducks are following their mothers outside our apartment complex. And it doesn't really matter if earlier I was feeling snappy or bummed out, all I feel is love.
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