How I Remember Her

Writing a Fragile Memory.

My earliest memory might be of getting bathed in a concrete wash basin in Portugal. The shock of the cold water, me coming up for air and gasping. The memory always cuts to my Aunt Candida in the backyard of my grandmother’s house in Lomba da Maia (We are there because she is dying). Aunt Candy holds a dead bird in her hand or it’s a mouse, I’m not sure, digs a hole in the soil and covers it. She makes a cross with two twigs and lays it on the mound. Maybe we say a prayer together or she sings something. I say “maybe,” because I don’t know for certain. I’ve also seen photos of my grandmother’s house: the wash basin, the stretch of garden ending with the outhouse, and me, age four, feeding a cow some hay. But do I really remember, or am I just “remembering” the photos?

I begin my own post the way Stacey Mickelbart did in her article for The New Yorker, Writing From Memory.

Some scientists think that memory formation may require a more mature grasp of language that children don’t develop until they’re three or four. Others think we can recall fragments, but can’t integrate them into autobiographical stories until we fully understand the concept of the autonomous self.

What is the earliest memory you have? Studies suggest that some children can remember events at age two and even before, but that the memories are fragile. (How I love that word to describe memory!)

This is because of the way memory works: the brain takes sensory fragments and tags them with specific associations. When we experience one memory cue, such as a smell or the sight of a familiar place, the brain reassembles other fragments with the same tags. The more often they’re assembled, the stronger the memories become. In the case of a two year old, the neural pathway to reassemble the memory is still relatively new and so a bit weak, but, the study argues, it can be made stronger: if parents want to help their children recall events from early childhood, they should reminisce often with their children, which reinforces details and gives meaning to the events.

My newest literary pursuit draws on my childhood memories. It is tentatively titled, Vovó’s Vignettes, and it’s an examination of memory and its delicate fragility. To write this book, I’ve had to take a closer look at family photographs, poring over familiar faces and places. Even objects in some photographs prompt an almost visceral reaction. For example, above the bedside lamp of my parent’s bedroom (photo above) . . . that is a holy water well. I still have it and it hangs in my eldest son’s room. It has been with me all my life and I remember my mother filling it with blessed water. I used it to make the sign of the cross before dropping to my knees and praying by my bedside each night, every morning.

My brain takes these fragmented cues and a recollection comes to mind. But I’ve always wondered in writing my stories on memory if those same recollections stored in my brain aren’t exaggerated or distorted.

A distorted synthesis of fragments may become a repeatedly recalled memory, and thus could be very vivid and still be false.

Memories aren’t the same as facts. But we’ve been tricked to think they are. We say to ourselves . . . but that’s how I remember it. I can see it as if it was yesterday. But sometimes the way we remember people or situations doesn’t match with memories held by others. Case in point, my maternal grandmother. When talking about my grandmother with cousins, their recollections of her don’t match with my tender memories of my grandmother. Where I bathe her in a positive and loving light, they tend to see her as domineering, even mean. That’s the tricky part of memory. Whose recollection is true? There is no answer to this, only the lived experience we each have, and as writers, it is that lived experience that hopefully makes it onto the page.

There’s part of me that thinks this is the way it should be. I’m not sure we’d want it any other way. When our parents or family members help children create meaning around what they remember, whose memory is it, anyway? Is there a way to retain my memories and keep them true? I think I can, but the question isn’t as important as I thought. When it comes to memory, truth may be overrated. There is also a life that is built on imagination. Strangely, when I write, it is this creative life I am drawn towards.

Here, for the first time, I’m sharing with you the opening excerpt from my new collection, Vovó’s Vignettes.

Airplane

The airplane gets smaller and smaller as it lifts up into the sky. With my nose pressed to the glass, the plane’s tail of exhaust thins to a thread. Then the clouds pinch the airplane, a small speck, and it disappears. I can’t tell Vovó that a lump is clogging my throat, like someone’s foot is stepping on my neck. My grandmother holds my hand, shakes it a couple of times, daring me not to cry. She drags me out of the airport, people pass by me in a blur.
 
Uncle Johnny is waiting for us in the parking lot, leaning against his car smoking. A cigarette hangs from the corner of his mouth. Puffs of smoke circling out from his nostrils, reminding me of that bull in the cartoon, Ferdinand, who is gentle and just wants to smell flowers. I remember his name because it’s like my father’s name, Fernando. Before my father boarded the plane, his voice dancing with excitement, cigarette bouncing, talking about school and girls and looking after myself and Vovó while he’s gone. My mother made a clicking/sucking sound with her tongue. He’s only a boy, only nine, she said, before giving me a big hug. I dug my fingers into her back fat and didn’t want to let go.
 
I climb into my uncle’s car—an AMC Gremlin—my eyes squinting through cigarette smoke. I roll down the window to gobble in some fresh air and look up at the moon. I dare it to chase me along the highway that turns onto Lakeshore and then up Bathurst St. before veering onto Queen Street W. Up Euclid Ave and into our laneway to number 185, closer to Dundas St. 

The moon follows me the whole way.