Silence- souvenirs of sensations beyond the edge of understanding.

Do you ever get that total sensation of a particularly distinct time brought to such an internal and personal level the memory sweeps over you in one grand sensation? Not that your nose smells anything new or different from the air you are breathing or did a second ago, or you taste anything differently, but you may breath in sharply, nostril may flair or twitch just as jaw muscles may go slack as your mouth water, your ears may listen to something far beyond the immediately engaged surrounding that is present or that you think may be. Things may become full and rich in an instant. This is how i will not of my own ability or desire, remember things if I’m lucky: my first semester at St. john’s, Hong Kong during monsoon when I was little, summers which were winters spent at my aunt’s farm, Ascham’s steps in fall during hockey season, falling in love for the first time, and a dozen other times I have lived in but can’t recall so completely and conclusively as a time unto it’s self as when this type of remembrance is sparked. There are entire durations I have concluded in sensibly forgetting, and realized in a moment much later. These are souvenirs that are symbolized by new feelings compacted of something dear and old that is always lost until that one second when doing nothing in particular to encourage the reception other than being blank, it is somehow found. It is times I remember like this with their place, objects, moods and impressions but every so often it is a person and this branches out to the sensations I know of them. If I try to describe this experience of the person, it turned into poetry. What is more puzzling than these occurrences are is I can’t say what it is that sparks these acute attacks, what combination if any, what absence, what selection and time. It is like receiving a perfectly worded, posted, pictured, marked, and written post card from yourself from long ago, in which you easily understand every element, delivered directly to your soul.

last modified Jul 26, 2003 at 15:45

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