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Sense memory
May. 14th, 2011 12:10 am You know that sensation of having a word or name or fact on the tip of your tongue? And it's so acute that you really can feel it on the tip of your tongue? Well I get that with sense memories. I touch or smell something and I get tip-of-the-tongue syndrome and it drives me nuts - for days. Only unlike with words and phrases I can't google what I can remember to relieve the frustration, I just have to keep revisiting the smell or texture or single note and see if I can finally ease my mind into recalling the associated memory.
I got a new mattress on Tuesday. My Mum has been threatening to surprise me with a new one for over a year now and stubborn, slothful stig that I am, I have maintained I was happy with my knackered, misshapen, budget mattress - and I was. The last few weeks I've been having more back aches and less sleep so I finally conceded and gratefully accepted my Mum's offer to buy me a new mattress (they are surprisingly expensive - who knew?) However, since it arrived on Tuesday the satisfaction of laying down on a firm but forgiving new mattress has been gradually giving way to a nagging sensation of familiarity.
Then questions. Every moment of ever unoccupied thought was given over to the resolution to my unsolvable mystery; when and where had I become acquainted with a mattress like this before? Where have I slept for long enough to imprint on my muscles the impact of a certain combination of springs and foam?
Finally, as I climbed (and I do mean climbed, the new mattress is twice as deep as the old one - I mean, good grief! I keep thinking of the illustrations of the Princess and the Pea in story books I read as a child) into bed tonight it struck me like a thunderbolt - as these tip-of-the-tongue memories so commonly do - and I remembered where I remembered a mattress like this from.
I wish I hadn't.
Encapsulated in the moment of relief and release at realising where the familiarity came from was bittersweet recollection. The climax of remembrance is tainted with all the moments connected to that other mattress - a person, a place - a life - that is behind me. But here it is - in every nerve and muscle - the memory, and the memory trigger, of something long past.
Let go, body, just let it drift out of my muscles. Let the touch, the smell, the softness, the calm, the sensations of that time be put away and when I find those textures and tastes again, let them be new to me. Let me sense the world again, afresh.
I got a new mattress on Tuesday. My Mum has been threatening to surprise me with a new one for over a year now and stubborn, slothful stig that I am, I have maintained I was happy with my knackered, misshapen, budget mattress - and I was. The last few weeks I've been having more back aches and less sleep so I finally conceded and gratefully accepted my Mum's offer to buy me a new mattress (they are surprisingly expensive - who knew?) However, since it arrived on Tuesday the satisfaction of laying down on a firm but forgiving new mattress has been gradually giving way to a nagging sensation of familiarity.
Then questions. Every moment of ever unoccupied thought was given over to the resolution to my unsolvable mystery; when and where had I become acquainted with a mattress like this before? Where have I slept for long enough to imprint on my muscles the impact of a certain combination of springs and foam?
Finally, as I climbed (and I do mean climbed, the new mattress is twice as deep as the old one - I mean, good grief! I keep thinking of the illustrations of the Princess and the Pea in story books I read as a child) into bed tonight it struck me like a thunderbolt - as these tip-of-the-tongue memories so commonly do - and I remembered where I remembered a mattress like this from.
I wish I hadn't.
Encapsulated in the moment of relief and release at realising where the familiarity came from was bittersweet recollection. The climax of remembrance is tainted with all the moments connected to that other mattress - a person, a place - a life - that is behind me. But here it is - in every nerve and muscle - the memory, and the memory trigger, of something long past.
Let go, body, just let it drift out of my muscles. Let the touch, the smell, the softness, the calm, the sensations of that time be put away and when I find those textures and tastes again, let them be new to me. Let me sense the world again, afresh.
