Day 52 - Memory Lane

 MEMORY LANE

Prompt - Memory Lane : What does Memory Lane look like?  How do you get there?

Memory Lane is a ghost location, a confused jumble of images and perceptions, distorted by time and prejudices and facts omitted, fantasies added.  It is an unreliable place, and yet, by and large, a friendly one, for it's somewhere we can distort reality to our own needs.  But there can be consequences.

The routes there vary, but for me there are, like Urmston, two main ways to get to the destination, albeit each comes with many detours and blind alleys.  One of these is available to all, the other only to a certain few.  But the one thing they have in common is that they have little in common with the places others visit in the same way.  Our memory lanes are all unique.

The route that is open to fewer is via written record, and that has been a dominant source for me over recent years.  I have kept a (more or less) daily diary since the start of 1975.  I am on my forty sixth annual voyage into recording my mundane life.  Until mid 2014 all of these were on paper, in individual volumes.  The first couple were in quite small books, but for many years they were A4, a page to every day, later A5.  Only when we were downsizing did I recognise that now, with the technology available, they should be entered online, accessible from multiple devices and not taking up physical space in the home.  So back-captured the earlier part of 2014 and have been online since.

That left a lot of paper diaries taking up room, and I set myself the long and sometimes tedious task of capturing every single entry since I began.  So far I'm up to mid 1987, meaning that I have nineteen years of my life on Google's servers, plus more than half of '87 and the beginnings of this lockdown year of '21.  Only twenty six and a bit years to go!

I could have worked backwards, considering the later entries to be the more useful, but that takes away from what the process can provide.  This is my way into Memory Lane on a regular basis, even if the words on the page and the memories associated with them clash sometimes.  Or fill in huge gaps.  I find there is so much I've forgotten, or distorted over time.  

Having ended my first marriage with some bitterness between us, I tend to look back on those years together with negativity.  Or so I thought.  And while that's true at times, meaning I've blanked out the happier times, it's also fair to say that I've been surprised how bad it was at times, and how frequently it almost came to an end, even within the first year together.  Memory works both ways.

Although the entries are mostly about mundane details, and there's a lot of sadness and negativity at times, it's fascinating to rediscover the person I once was, to see what's changed and what's not (I'm much happier now!), and all the events and people and places I've totally forgotten about.  Even reading about them in my own words doesn't bring them back sometimes.  Memory Lane is a place with many black holes.

But my other route to this shady past is by the same road that most follow - random chance.  It might be something as concrete as a need to recall events for official purposes, or to relate a tale that provides background and explanation, or to respond to the therapist's questioning.  More often it will be slim chance.  A song heard, a place shown on TV, a mention of an old radio programme, a word about a previous employer, or friend, or lover.  Reading a book can trigger memories, as you find yourself associating with one character or another, or recalling your own reflections of events you have lived through.  JFK syndrome?  

One of the delights of the human mind is its ability to perform associations that are not consciously obvious.  A tune unheard for decades returns us to a specific pub at a specific time.  Perhaps even to a specific seat and table.  A news item about the anniversary of the first moon landing recalls being wakened in the middle of the night and brought downstairs to watch a fuzzy image of a great moment in history.  The colour of a coat on the street brings back a forgotten friend from decades ago.  It's this unpredictability that makes Memory Lane a place to cherish, even when fears lurk there too.  

It looks like the past, but a past you have built up in your own mind, not a historical record.  You get there in surprise, in wonder.  Memory lane is a glory of humanity, and we all fear losing it for ever.  With good reason.