Warning: This is all about me. More so than usual. If you’re here to hear about notme things, well, turn back now. You have been warned…
First off, you should know about my accident. Reminiscing about childhood memories is much less significant unless you have acute amnesia. That said, even with amnesia (yes, it still sounds to me like something out of Jerry Springer too), Google Street View shouldn’t really have such an effect on me 10+ years after my accident. Yet, here I sit all strange-ified.
Here is the house I grew up in. The odd part is that I remember the house. The even odder part is I only remember weird fragments from the house. I remember a bungie-corded milk crate attached to one of those posts in the front that we used as a basketball hoop. I remember that fire hydrant being illegally opened so the kids in the neighborhood could play in the water. But I don’t actually remember any of the people. I remember walking to this library, but I don’t remember the actual trip. I know kids used to hide their knives in these bushes before going into Munger Middle School so they didn’t set off the metal detectors. But I don’t remember going into the school. (Don’t get me wrong, I could probably take you to my locker — I just don’t remember ever opening it. SO WEIRD.)
So while this evening I’ve been walking around my old neighborhood with Google Street View, and remembering things like Stan’s Whip and Whirl, they’re all hollow memories. I wish I could explain it better, but it’s as if I’m remembering a setting with no characters.
And yes, it creeps me right friggen out. That library I linked earlier? I know where the good books are inside. I know the smell of the back room full of grown up books that only the nerdiest kids ever checked out. Sadly, it’s all an odd, empty, lifeless memory.
Except that back room. I think I could sit in the old leather chair and smell that book dust for hours. I might drive there just to smell that smell one more time. 🙂
You’d probably find it interesting what all you remember if you were to actually, physically went there. Childhood memories can be really strong.
The last time I went to skulk around the building I grew up in, I remembered every single crack and line in the asphalt of the alley next to it. I couldn’t draw it from memory, but standing in the alley looking at it, there was overwhelming familiarity. A “yes, this is exactly the way it is supposed to be.”
(err… actually, physically GO there. I have my zoom up to 150% which causes some of the comment box text to disappear out the right edge… so I guessed wrong when I reread for edits. T.T)
That’s awesome Shawn! It’s great that you’re sharing your experiences of amnesia; and it’s amazing that Google Street View invoked some of your old memories! I hope your memory continues to return 🙂
So, pardon my lack of medical expertise here but, technically you still have amnesia, correct? I mean, unless you ever recovered the memories you’d still have it, I assume. (?)
This is all rather fascinating to me.
And I’m with you — I think you should go back to the library. What an odd and cool sensation I suspect that may be for you.
This sounds like something that could have come out of Rod Serling’s typewriter!
I’ll bet if you went back to the library, the smells that you wrote about would trigger some memories. Smells seem to be incredibly powerful memory triggers (in my experience at least).
I have to strain my brain to remember stuff from then, you are an amazing person, lots of people ask me, about you, did he ever get his memory back, I say, not really, maybe something now and then, or maybe he just doesn’t tell me, but he’s still “Shawn”, same personality, same sence of humor…
I PUSHED THE WRONG BUTTON!!
…same brainyness, he once said to me,
“Mom, why do you study, don’t you listen when they talk”
anyway, I hope what your experienceing and remembering, leaves you with good feelings and happyness. I love you.
So, ever since I read this post I can’t get that song out of my head: “Last night I went to sleep in Deeee-troit City, and dreamed about those cotton fields back home….”
To top it all off, last night I dreamed that I was in a library and met @shawnp0wers there. Twilight Zone, I guess!