Tag: memory

SHARED MEMORIES WITH STRANGERS

Magnolia etching by the Australian Artist Lionel Lindsay (brother to Norman Lindsay)

Asleep in a foreign house, I’ll half wake thinking I’m in my childhood room with the adjoining terracotta tiled veranda just outside. After a moment I realise I am not there at all. Nor am I at my current home with the leaning eucalypts that seem to peer inside the bedroom.

This fuzzy, disconnecting feeling happened a lot recently during a week away, maybe because the flowering gardens of the holiday rental reminded me of my original family home, which was full of assorted pink and white azaleas and the green brown leaves of the magnolia tree. My subconscious mind began to go back in time. I’d wander along the silent neighbourhood streets full of opulent park-like gardens full of spring colour. I have not ridden my pushbike or run with my dog along these streets for 32 years. My memories were forged during thirteen years of living in a heritage house set on a leafy suburban quarter-acre block. Memories that are spiced rich with smell, colour, textures and feelings.

Somehow, just a few days after that first trip away since months of covid, I ended up driving by the house I grew up in on my way home from a trip to Sydney. What happened next squashed that disconnected, fuzzy feeling but has also given me a mind-bending riddle that I’m just now figuring out.

As I drove by my childhood home, I noticed a yellow development sign pinned to the low green and cream brick wall. This is the border wall that’s framed by a massive, native Lillipilly tree that the stingy caterpillars love. Parking the car, I walked over and read that the development is for another dwelling. As I was trying to figure out where exactly this would be, a young bloke carrying stuff for a council pickup walked down the gravel driveway to the grass near me. I asked him if he lives here and he said yes. Without thinking, I quickly said “I did too”. Then I asked him about the development. We ended up swapping stories about living there and I bombarded the poor guy with a bunch of questions, although he didn’t seem to mind.

No, he hadn’t noticed the ghost of Australian artist Lionel Lindsay who lived there too but his mum may have.

Yes, he’s seen the statue commemorating Lionel up at the park.

Yes, it is a really cool house in a heat wave (I felt that cool dry air relief as I whooshed in the door after walking home from school on a hot summer’s day)

Yes, the view from the top of the two 120 year old magnolia trees is pretty good. (I now saw into the hidden garden across the road and felt that exhilaration of climbing up high).

The pool is a lot of upkeep, and the little pond is still there. (I could see the light blue ripples as the sunlight sparked into the pool and I smelt the earthy dark waters of the tiny pond).

Yes, he’s seen lots of the funnel webs too.

Funnel web spider in attack position

As we talked, I could look right up the orange gravel drive to the far porch and apart from a flowering white climber stretching to the roof, and a BMW parked in the drive, the scene looked unchanged since my childhood. I kept noticing the wrong car and the image kept pulling me back to the present. But then I’d be remembering standing right there as a kid, talking about how my cattle dog bailed up a Funnel Webb spider under the flowering wisteria that draped over the pergola out the back. His dog did the same thing and he was worried, but I said I was worried too but then found out dogs are immune to the spider’s venom. Then I pointed to the gutter nearest us and told the guy that there was a funnel web spider there one night. While I was on a roll talking about spiders, I pointed to the gravel drive and recast how I had trodden barefoot on a huntsman spider in the dark that bit me.  We talked about the neighbours and how the bushy creek at the end of the road is gone now and how I used to cut the lawn edges along the gutter with a manual rotor tool and how just this month I bought one for my place after all these years.

I think what really helped me consolidate my childhood memories of living in that house, was the easy flowing conversation with a young man who was gathering his own happy memories of living there. Every ten years or so I have driven past my childhood house, and I’m afraid to admit, it jarred me to look at the ‘new’ tasteful steel fence and the different orange plants and neat hedges. Now, this sensation dissolved thanks to a short but powerful story-swapping conversation with a stranger.

My bedroom opened out to this veranda (I took this photo ready for dancing for my 18th Birthday)

 

Jean Lindsay circa 1900 – 1910

After leaving the house, I drove the exact route I’d taken as a kid, threading through the streets where I’d take off on my bike or with the dog. My choice of streets meant I avoided the steep hills and traffic and the route took me past my favourite gardens. I noticed during the slow drive that the real estate looked more polished than I remember. What I found interesting, was as I instinctively turned into the various streets and recognised the scenery, it felt easy and okay. Just like during that conversation. I expected it to feel familiar, but the discomfort was gone. This surprised me. Remembering the free-flowing bike rides here felt good. This remembering may be the past, but the past is as real as the present as I drove my same childhood route decades later. I’m still not sure how to describe this but it feels like some sort of validation of my past and childhood and all that good stuff that goes with it. Not something to forget but rather to remember and cherish.

Me as a kid at home

The final layer I discovered when delving into this concept of shared memories is how we share connections to special things. One of those special things for me I share with Lionel Lindsay. A man I never met but nonetheless, as a kid, I had felt his somewhat judgmental vibe whilst growing up in his old house. One thing I didn’t divulge during the conversation with the current inhabitant, is that once or twice in the last few decades I drove past the house around Christmas time and I’d stop and snap off a monster sized magnolia flower from one of the two old trees, to take home. These are one of my favourite flowers. They are the size of a dinner plate and emit a heavy heady scent. The petals are thick and smooth and shine with a regal ivory colour.

I planted a magnolia tree in the garden where I currently live. It signifies home and is grounding to look at even if I feel a twinge of discord. I don’t think I’ll feel that twinge anymore.

Like me, Lionel admired the very same two magnolia trees and their repeated flux of flowers every year. The blooms inspired him to create beautiful artwork. They may also have become an anchor for him as they are for me. One of his magnolia works is entitled “Lionel’s Place”.

The young fella told me that after the recent big storms, the arborists said how they are amazed at how solid and strong those two huge Magnolia trees are. I love that. I’d say Lionel would too.

 

My magnolia I’ve planted at my home now

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You can read more memoir stories here.

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Freedom Creek

Running fast along the creek gave me freedom from everyone and everything; school, boredom, teachers, schoolkids, brothers, parents, the lot. I could smell the sweet privet flowers and hear the quiet stream flowing along beside me. In anticipation, I’d run for the next turn, and leap the rocky creek bed into the old man’s orchard. Checking for shiny ripe fruit, I’d dance past before following the next bend in the creek. As the body moved along, the mind would slough everything behind and I’d slip smoothly into my own inner world. Entering this realm is a comfort like the first warming droplets of a hot shower soaking into a cooled neck and back.

I felt freedom because this is where I am free. I say ‘am free’ as I still often feel this kind of frizzy feeling when I’m moving through the bush with no one but me.

As I ran, the sun back-lit through green leaves of overgrown bush and the pretty weeds soothed me. I felt in control and powerful. No one was there to tell me what to do or what clothes to wear. I hated the rigidity of the tartan school uniform and choking tie, so I’d wear half of it down the creek in rebellion. It felt good. Outside of school, were not permitted to wear jumpers unless they were covered with heavy blazers. Eating in public was also banned.

Eventually I’d amble slowly back home feeling relaxed and soothed, ready for the rhythms of household living and the next days ahead of mundane school lessons and the usual chaos of people pressures.

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Other similar ‘Various’ life writing stories of mine you can read are Pink, Synaesthesia,Minimal Me

You can read other stories in a series of how I Source Strength The Summit Run and The Summit Run, Closing the Loop.

You can read more stories in my series about Encounters with Wild Animals such as a Great White Shark, horses, snakes, whales, rock possums, bull buffalo and spiders

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Synaesthesia… syna what? A merging of my senses

It might sound airy fairy to you but this ‘merging of the senses’ is as solid in me as the pain felt from stubbing my pinky toe on the unforgiving steel plant stand in my kitchen. I thought everyone experienced what I do and it shocked me when I realized the truth. I always assumed we are all the same especially when my brother described the pain he felt one day in his side as green. It turns out he’s not synaesthesic. None of my family is. It’s supposed to be hereditary though. I’ve never met anyone who is either. Not that I bring it up much, mainly because no one EVER knows what I’m talking about so there’s no chance I’ll get anything out of the interaction, so I don’t bother. There was one time I did mention it and I was slammed as a liar. That was at a friends’ big birthday bash down at the surf club a few years back. A bunch of us were talking near the bar and I was explaining it to them and this one know it all woman, yes you know the type, goes “I don’t believe in it” like I was trying to convert her to some zealous religious sect or something. I couldn’t care less about her rebuttal but her response made me realize that I probably sounded like a lunatic. So here I am telling you about it. You can take it or leave it too of course. I won’t hold it against you if you conclude I’m a looney tune if that suits you. I’m okay with that.

Synaesthesia n. sensation produced in part of the body by stimulus elsewhere; production of mental sense-impression by stimulation of another sense.

That’s the definition of synaesthesia from my 1988 Concise Oxford Dictionary. When I hear sounds, I see in my mind’s eye shapes and colours. These shapes and forms and images change as the components of the sound changes. I love listening to techno music with synth sounds because they give me these fluid smooth and soothing patterns and lines that flow into each other. I haven’t taken LSD but I’d imagine what I ‘see’ is a slightly more restrained form of that sort of drug-induced, colourful and expansive trip. Lucky aren’t I, getting free trips all the time. Ying and yang though, loud piercing sounds give me harsh shapes and snapping sharp colours. One thing I’d really hate is to live next to a noisy traffic intersection with all the hideous patterns and forms that go with that type of constant audio stimuli.

Some people remember faces and or names, I remember voices. Each person’s way of speaking is unique and has its own indelible and unchangeable signature. Some voices I love, some just annoy the absolute hell out of me thanks to their particular set of squiggles and lines. I hear some people talk and I think, how can anyone be married to that? Luckily, I have a reliable audio memory that balances out the fact that I cannot remember people’s faces or names. In fact names can become a problem because of my synaesthesia due to what colour hair and complexion they have. How this works, or rather, doesn’t work is, when I think of or see letters in the alphabet, I see a colour with each letter. Each letter has its own unchanging fixed shade. Together, a bunch of letters form a word and that word I see as a whole colour, usually with the colour I see matching closely the first capital letter. Where it becomes confusing for me is if I meet someone or know someone who is say blonde haired and pale with a name spelt Katherine not Catherine with a C.  To me, Katherine should be someone darker and brunette because K is dark blue in the word Katherine and Catherine should have an overall paler face because C to me is cream. Mix them up and I’m stuffed.

Right now, I am listening to the neighbour’s lawn being mown and it looks roughly like this; …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. . As you can see, no rocks or sticks on their grass and no backfires, a dark subdued brown in colour running along a similar toned background, small dashes and not too bright because it is in the distance, low in pitch and not right outside my door.  If it were closer and louder and running over rubble, the line would be jagged, thicker, sharper edged and brighter and depending on pitch, lighter or darker plus a different colour. The background would also most likely be more contrasty like a pale one that makes the darker pattern more sharp and defined. Yukky in other words.

What I do like about what I see is it is way more accurate than other facets of my memory and I can trust it. The other night I heard one of the distinctive calls of a Yellow-bellied glider. I saw an image of something akin to a question mark with the vertical base line forming a twisting, almost spiraling pattern at the end of the call. Listening to the call from an app, gave me an almost identical image. Other possum calls from other species, (of which I have studied as part of my PhD, Scent marking and vocal communication in the rock-haunting possum Petropseudes dahli 2004), are completely different and give me their own specific signature imagery.

Although what I experience can be a kind of painful intrusion sometimes, at least it’s not as painful as my repeated stubbing of my little toe in the kitchen. I also have to be happy that my synaesthesia sight is as accurate as any photograph and it is more detailed than flat photos as I usually see 3D imagery like a hologram. Oh and it’s free for me.

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