Our first memories

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Our first memories are often fractured and obscure. I myself have a dim (but vivid) memory of lying over my mother’s shoulder and being rocked. I was looking toward the kitchen, in which one yellowish light was burning. She was rocking too fast, and it bothered me.

Is it a real memory? I think so. I can’t imagine how I would have made it up.

Here’s a little story about Jean Piaget.

Piaget was one of the first and best developmental psychologists. He had a vivid memory of having been kidnapped when very young:

 “I was sitting in my pram, which my nurse was pushing in the Champs Élysées, when a man tried to kidnap me. I was held in by the strap fastened round me while my nurse bravely tried to stand between me and the thief. She received various scratches, and I can still see vaguely those on her face. Then a crowd gathered, a policeman with a short cloak and a white baton came up and the man took to his heels. I can still see the whole scene, and can even place it near the tube station. When I was about fifteen my parents received a letter from my former nurse saying that she had been converted to the Salvation Army. She wanted to confess past faults, and in particular to return the watch she had been given on this occasion. She had made up the whole story, faking the scratches. I, therefore, must have heard, as a child, the account of the story, which my parents believed, and projected it into the past in the form of a visual memory.”

Does this make you wonder about your early memories?

It makes me wonder about mine.

And maybe it makes me wonder about how accurate our memories are in general.

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Imaginary friends

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Lynda Barry, the great graphic artist whom I was privileged to see at RISD in early January, talked a great deal about childhood. She talked about first crushes (you remember yours, don’t you?). She talked about remembering your first telephone number, and how most people smile (and sometimes even laugh) when they recite it.

 

 

She talked about children playing, and how they go into something almost like a trance when they do it. She described a little boy playing with his bacon and eggs in a restaurant, and when his mother suddenly noticed what he was doing and challenged him, he dropped the bacon as if he’d been awakened from a dream.

 

 

And she talked about imaginary friends.

 

 

I had lots of them. Mine were mostly based on cartoons: Bugs Bunny was my best friend (I had a stuffed Bugs Bunny that talked, so he was very important to me), and also Top Cat (I imagined that he was my husband – go figure that one out), and Superman, and Porky Pig, and lots of others.

 

 

We were all very happy together. I especially enjoyed imagining them all together; it was very exciting. You never knew what was going to happen.

 

 

Lately I’ve been polling my friends on the subject. One said that she’d had a hundred imaginary friends, but they all had the same name. Another immediately told me the name of her imaginary friend, and said she was sort of like an American Girl doll, but not really.

 

 

I knew exactly what they were talking about.

 

 

This is a paraphrase of Lynda Barry:

 

 

“I didn’t really have an imaginary friend when I was a kid, so I made one up. I had an imaginary imaginary friend. He wasn’t very convincing. I’d say: ‘My imaginary friend says you have to give me your Popsicle,’ and nobody believed me.

 

 

“The daughter of a friend of mine has a real imaginary friend. His name is Sprinkles, and you can only talk to him through an electric fan.” Lynda paused, and looked at us, and shook her head. “You cannot make this shit up.”

 

 

Indeed you cannot.

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Running to school

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Back to school, kids!

 

 

My walk to work takes me past the University’s day-care center, around the time when parents are dropping their children off in the morning: lots of noisy kids, parents driving, parents walking. I like the walking parents and children best; they’re almost always holding hands, which is very sweet.

 

 

A few years ago, I saw a father and daughter walking hand in hand toward the center, when all at once the little girl saw someone she knew – some friends, maybe – and let go of her father’s hand, and started running toward the school, excited to join the fun.

 

 

How long has it been since you were excited enough about something to run toward it?

 

 

Ah well, ho hum. It’s part of the magic of childhood.

 

 

We outgrow it.

 

 

(Sadly enough.)

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