Unwanted treats
On Wrathnar’s plastic surgery blog, Skylark mentioned being programmed to forget the pain of childbirth. Today, I was reminded of just how odd and fickle the faculty of memory is. I went into my usual coffee bar to wait for my daughter, and there by the bar was an easel proclaiming ‘Seasonal Treats.’
An experience of lingering pain and despair suddenly flooded my mind, which had nothing to do with my present circumstances.
My memory had dispensed with the fact that exactly a year ago, I spent about six weeks visiting a friend in hospital. She was in circumstances that sometimes drove me to anger. If you want reasons, see my blog, ‘Bringing it all back home.’ But what hit me today was not the experience itself, but how far it had all gone from my day-to-day consciousness.
The friend is now somewhat better, and the whole episode has,
until today, been parceled safely away in the back of my
mind.
Each time I visited the hospital, I went for a coffee in the
hospital café, and standing by the counter was another easel
proclaiming ‘Seasonal Treats.’
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3 Comments
I've been having a bit of a deja vu with a book I'm currently reading, in that I bought it recently in the certain knowledge that I hadn't read it before - but from the very first sentence, it's intensely familiar. And paragraph by paragraph, I recognise the story unfolding - I say to myself, 'Ah yes, that's what happened next, I remember it now.' Yet I couldn't for the life of me tell you what happens next in advance. I do now know I've read it before, and I also have no idea what happens next - until it does and I slap my forehead. I have no recollection of when I must have read it or why I've expunged it from my memory banks. I know too that whatever does eventually happen, I didn't like it last time I read it. It's a most disconcerting feeling.
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