Not long ago Eli and I went to the beach. On that gray, windy morning we had the beach to ourselves for quite a while. We made the first sets of footprints across the soft, wet sand. Above the high tide line, however, we found the remains of a spiral made of gathered stones. Eli seemed intrigued, and we talked a little about how it might have gotten there. It reminded me of one of my earliest memories when I must have been around Eli's age...
It was evening and I was walking on Sapelo Island, Georgia with my parents towards the old lighthouse. I remember the feel of the air, the lavender sky as night was falling, and the darkened lighthouse rising in front of us. Our walking path was a largely abandoned stretch of unpaved road during that time, so I was surprised when I found a doll's shoe. It was a simple white molded plastic Mary Jane-type doll shoe, but it suddenly struck me that there was a present and a past, and that some other little girl I didn't know had been there before me. I remember feeling a slight shift as I realized that I wasn't the center of the universe, that there was some other little girl who grew up quite independent of me. It felt a little eerie and mysterious in a delicious way.
Carl Jung felt that your earliest memories remain in your consciousness because there is something fundamental about them in terms of who you are. You remember certain things because they resonate with your most authentic self and your life purpose. I feel somehow sure that the doll's shoe is my earliest memory, and that rather makes sense for someone who grew up to be a history geek, an archivist, and a storyteller. Years later, here I am again near the ocean -- but this time the ocean on the opposite side of the country -- watching my child puzzle over the mysterious spiral in the sand. Maybe it felt significant to him. Most likely it did not and he'll forget all about it. Yet knowing he will probably experience his first permanent memories around this age, I wonder what those memories will be. I mull over all these adventures we do together. Will they be more than family stories and photographs to him? What will he actually remember of his California days? Decades from now, I hope to ask him. For now that, too, is a mystery.
What a lovely image, and a very thoughtful post! Memories are so powerful.
Posted by: Sherri B. | 13 January 2012 at 10:39 AM
Thanks, Sherri! You're right...they are.
Posted by: Valerie J. Frey | 13 January 2012 at 11:42 PM