#firstmemory

So basically I’ve spent my whole life pretending like I know what’s going on.

(( we’ve decided to do some art for the various story chapters done so far for use with twitter, this is for the first two, First Memory and Dark Memory uvu ))

It was June or July 1998. I had turned 5 years old in March of that year. My mom and dad had a video camera and brought it along, so there is a VHS tape of this trip somewhere. Thinking back, I’m not sure how my parents drove from Columbus, Ohio to Maine with three kids in the back seat of a truck but somehow they did it. Especially since my older sister Andrea, and I didn't get along and I picked on my little brother Eric, relentlessly. Unfortunately, I don't know where in Maine we were headed, probably Portland, but I’m not entirely sure. With a trucker’s map of America in her lap and the video camera on her shoulder, my mom guided the way (barely though because Dad would get mad and take the map from her. This all set in motion years of frustration during trips for my father and eventually, we stopped going on vacation). We made a pit stop in Niagara Falls, New York. I had no idea I was looking at Niagara Falls. My dad to this day will say, “The Canadian side is much nicer to look at.” Once we arrived in Maine, we went to the beach, swam in the campground pool, went up in to light houses. Apparently, I made friends with a Native American boy who was staying at the same campground. There is a story floating around about a pizza that was devoured almost instantly. According to my mom, we almost got swept away by the high tide that was coming in during one of our beach trips. I remember when I started school that autumn, telling the kids in my class that I had swallowed a little bit of the Atlantic Ocean, so I probably fell down in the water. I felt so cool that I had swallowed ocean water. I don't remember the trip home, but it is probably because the trip we took the following year to Oregon holds better memories than this trip.

Today I was thinking about the meaning of our lives, and the possibility of past lives. After some petrifying thoughts, something interesting came to my mind: We all have a first memory, the very first memory from our lives. Mine is waking up in my parents' bedroom to the sound of my Mother's voice telling me it's time to go to nursery school. From the time before, I remember nothing at all. But when I woke up that day I knew how to do things and who the people were around me. Even though I had no memory of them. Isn't it strange? Of course, it is only my case. But something popped into my head. What if before our first memory we are not in control of our minds? What if that period is sort of a "basics for life" session with our past lives, who have experience in this world? Of course, it is just a mere idea, and definitely not foolproof. Even I can find errors in it. For example, what if it's the first life of a soul and it has no experience etc. But then again, who the hell knows how does souls work? Maybe there isn't such a thing as new souls anymore. Maybe there're just young and old ones. After all, only on this blue planet alone lives 7.5 billion people, let alone the rest of the galaxy. Anyways, I think it would be an interesting reason for why don't we remember that time. The scientifical one is probably that our mind needs the necessary development before being able to comprehend things on a higher level and store memories. But still, I wouldn't mind if my theory was correct, that would mean a lot of reassuring things to me.

My parents have been divorced since then, but I often think about how that is my first memory. So tragic and beautiful. While others have precious first memories of a puppy or running through the sprinklers. But I have my parents... yelling at each other. It is quite f***ing disturbingly funny. 

First tent camp-out with both of my little girls. They are tuckered! Hoping these kinds of experiences become their first memories, much like my own first memory which, as it happens, was actually camping with my parents in New Zealand of all places. It is a very distinct memory involving all the senses. I think I was about two and a half years old. Crazy, but I can't help this deep-seeded desire to expose my kids to experiences similar to those my parents exposed me to at such a young age. Somewhere, sometime, or perhaps with a collection of somewheres and sometimes, my soul awoke to wandering the path less travelled and viewing life from a different perspective, or at least through less filters if that makes sense. Nothing stops me from pursuing my ambitions, regardless of and often knowingly against social pressures and expectations. Fly away free! #firstmemory #campingwithkids #contemplatingtheuniverse #leavinfootprints

Anymore, it’s the memory of a memory. A black television and being little. The front door open and children running away when my big sister tells them I have Chicken Pox. My mother still lived there, and I may or may not truly remember, but I really can’t imagine my mom and my dad sharing a room and a bed and a life. Like water and oil: stability and ether, anger and sadness, fun in each of their ways, his more rough and tumble, hers more sweet and ever elusive. That was after she moved away. I don’t remember playing with her, still in the apartment with us. I’ve seen newborn photos of me, impossible that any of it is me anymore. Day 2, May 3, 2016

Now what?