Memory

Going back to ‘memory’ (see 'Masking' post). I am interested in how we ‘story’ our world. If I think back – to childhood say – I tend to recall some key moments. Usually they have an emotional connection – delight, apprehension, frustration… They are more like mental snapshots than a rolling film or continuous narrative. Linked together these shape my apprehension of myself and become my story. Because relatively little is fore-grounded and much remains untouched, there is a sense in which I am selectively fictioning my life.

If my memories have a comparatively static quality, my dreams are full-on film.

Masking...

Still thinking about masks. Not only does the world see the mask-wearer differently; the mask-wearer experiences a different world. The loss of peripheral vision simultaneously concentrates and diminishes vision. The taken-for-granted richness of a peripheral world is denied. The wearer is doubly 'masked'.

One of the practical outcomes of this (I discovered) is that you bump into people!

And I am reminded of a time in Nelson when I was about four years old. It was the Nelson Mardi Gras and I had a cat mask (much treasured, I still have it). I remember the mask, the swirl of celebrating adults and a steep hill down which intrepid youngsters were go-carting.

Which triggers much thinking about the nature of memory....