Memories of Memories

by Eric

Have I written about my earliest memories already? I can't remember so why not give it a try?

Not that my first memories are very exciting. I'm not one of those people who claim to recollect the obstetrician slapping his bottom. And just as well since an initial memory so traumatic might warp a person's whole view of life. In fact I don't retain much prior to my school days. A few jumbled up snapshots taken with a mental Brownie camera, colors leached away by time, out-of-focus, heads cut off, undated.

There's a picture of a dark room illuminated only by a tiny black and white television screen showing Willie the Worm, a local kid's program. Am I sitting in a high chair looking out over a plate? Surely I must have been older than that. I'd hate to think my first memory in life is Willie the Worm. Talk about warping one's viewpoint!

Instead, maybe it was of my dad coming in through the apartment doorway on a rainy day, wearing his overcoat, presumably just home from teaching. No story, no particular significance. Why did that scene stick in my mind?

Or was it the view from our apartment window, looking down into an alley where a fellow sporting a Mohawk is walking by. I guess the exotic haircut amazed me. The big world outside contained things I had never dreamt of.

Although my preschool memories aren't time stamped these have always struck me as the most ancient.

Trivial events but ones I judge authentic because of their triviality. I am not likely recalling a story someone told me, or remembering looking at a photograph in a family album as might be the case with a birthday party or a special toy. I'm certain I never ran across a picture of Willie the Worm until I looked him up on the Internet a few years ago. For decades, I wasn't even sure that Willie had existed or was just a figment of my imagination.

Should I include the terrifying memory of the open stairs leading down from the second floor porch at the back of my parents' apartment? Between the gaps, which appeared large enough to allow for the passage of a small child, you could see all the way to the concrete below. However, I recall having nightmares about falling from those stairs and it might be the more vivid dreams I remember rather than the stairs themselves.

How do you separate memories of dreams from real memories, unless the dreams are about the endless skull-littered plain behind the closet door or the alien tripods looming up over the familiar houses on the street? I'm pretty sure those aren't memories of reality even though they are real memories.

Then again, from this distance, does it make much difference? Is the residue of reality any different from the residue of dreams?