A Conversation With God, on Childhood and Amnesia;
You were there,
from the beginning, and till now.
Every picture, every video, every memento that glances before me dances, aligned in the same beat; do you remember? do you remember this place, this day, this feeling?
But I cannot answer, not to all of their expectant eyes. I can say I remember the big things, the bright colors: I remember the afternoon I wore my denim jacket and my sister was born, the trip to the botanical garden where I skipped about in my pretty red polka dot dress; I can say I remember the way the wind had tugged at my stainless white skirt as we had all stood by the cobalt neighborhood lake, and the way we had flashed a smile as the camera listened to our young and chorused, CHEESE!
I can say I remember roaming the dusty sierra desert, keeping close watch for hidden beasts with poisonous tongues; I can say I remember the yellow summer holidays, the periwinkle winter night family discussions, feeling pretty in new dresses for parties in the verdant spring. but these are not the only days captured, left here in these untouched photographs -- there were the quieter moments, the gentle and soft times belonging to twilight; yes, what of the times I held my brother in my arms, his left eye swollen from his illness, his hair rising straight in the air with static, his lips curled upwards as I kissed his forehead; what of the times I fell asleep on the ground, my arms wrapped around my two-week old sister, whose tiny hands had ensconced themselves under the base of my stomach as she slept soundly, as if I was her protector and the only one she could feel safe with? What of the times I waited under the kitchen table, knowing I’d be the first thing my father would see when he walked through the front door when he returned home each day; what of the sensation of my stomach jumping from the exhilaration of riding the subway with my parents or of the wet grass blades tickling my toes as I played with my friends; what of the times I ran up to my mother and pressed my lips on her cheek, making her nose scrunch up as she laughed, not bothering to wipe away the trail of slobber I left on her skin;
These were all the real moments, with lovely significance obvious to any passerby, any witness from the outside, but I cannot remember them. I know that they have happened and I know that I must have felt something during these moments, and that whoever was with me must have felt something too, but I remember nothing. I was too young to know these memories were the ones I needed to hold on to, to capture, to grasp as if my life depended on it -- with age, it seems, comes amnesia, unconscious forgetfulness, for better, and for worse. But you were there, every step of the way, and now I ask you, not out of anger or frustration or resentment, but out of innocent curiosity, a simple desire for an explanation: if I have been blessed with such a beautiful life, why have you let me forget so much of it?
I look at these photographs and listen to these stories, with a nostalgic smile plastered on my face accompanied with a deeply unsettled feeling tugging in my stomach. I want to say I remember this moment, that I remember the warmth that spread from my head to my toes as I held my brother’s hand as we both laughed so hard our cheeks turned red --
-- but of course I can’t. I haven’t forgotten everything, but of some memories, I know nothing. I was a child, so naturally I have come to forget -- this is a truth of life, the way things were always designed to be, and I ought to accept it, and mostly I do, but I would be lying if I said that these sweet captures of my past does not bring me nothing but sorrow. I’ve discovered within me a yearning that burns so intently that my own heart has surprised myself, and as I turn page after page of this taunting photobook, I find myself sinking deeper into this pathetically hopeless sensation of sad. you can feel it, can’t you, the paradoxical storm whirling within me -- you can feel the longing, the nostalgia coursing through me, and still, you can feel the strange hollowness slowly settling in like an unannounced guest. it’s so terribly confusing to miss something you managed to cease to remember, but I suppose that once a heart is shown something worthy of love, it can not help but ache to love that thing. and so I miss the past, feel profoundly grateful for being blessed so abundantly, and yet I feel as if I am reaching out for a life that is not mine, that does not belong to me. and perhaps it doesn’t, anymore, for I am a new heart and a new soul and a new person entirely (the world has shaped and molded me quite differently) but I once was someone else, entirely happy and so incredibly loved, and I do not want to let go. so please, I plead with you, make this awful feeling of melancholy and emptiness fade away. remind me again of the past -- don’t you worry, I will not disregard the present, nor the future -- because I know that the life I have now is enthrallingly wonderful, but I also know that what I used to have was beautiful. and I do not want to let it go.
Dear God, is this what it feels like to know I am not living a childhood anymore?
- Red










