Well, today’s prompt took me a few minutes or so to give my memory a jig and I must say that as I meandered through lanes of memories of yester-years, searching the nooks and crannies to see if I can pinpoint my earliest memory tucked away neatly in the recesses of my mind, waiting to be discovered as it jumps out at me and says ‘hello there, here I am and good to see you,’ I find fuzzy memories melding into each other and I am not quite sure again what happened when and which one came before the other.

Images of my childhood home, of close family members old, gone and alive; of lovely frocks, of sunny days and smells of the soursop, mango and cashew fruits, of the various sounds of music playing on my dad’s Grundig turntable, of the cries of younger siblings, the laughter and soft scolding of my mother, the pounding of the mortar and pestle – preparing native foofoo – the cosy smell of my grandmother and her shea butter, the drizzle of the rain and images of running out in the rain with neighbourhood friends as our mothers yelled at us to come out of the rain all flip through my mind like a TV series. Dainty echoes of yester-years wrap itself like gossamer across my mind and like the spiders cobweb, they all interconnect.

I do have some recollection of early days of kindergarten and some of the nursery rhymes learnt have stuck with me all these decades. One particular memory of having being left perched on a fence where I sat and cried so badly sticks out like a sore thumb. The boy, who happened to be so much older and bigger refused to put me down and I was unable to come down by myself. I think I refused to go back to the nursery after that incident and my mother was rightly concerned. I can’t remember how she resolved the issue and I don’t know why I have held onto this memory and why it didn’t get lost in the annals of my life.

I wish I could say that I have extra – ordinary – recollection and clarity of my toddler years in sequence, but I daresay that I truly don’t recall as much as I would have loved. Maybe, if I had an encounter with a hypnotist, who knows what one will discover under the intense state of concentration. I am not so sure that I really care to know as I doubt if delving so deeply into the past at this point in time in my life is truly worth the price. After all, the past is simply a memory trace of time lived and as whimsical or as eager as we may feel, we can’t go back there as we are living in this present moment.

I do understand that the exercise of reliving one’s memory can be essential as they not only teach us important life lessons that we can apply in our present and possibly the future, they also give us a sense of continuity, identity and purpose. Indeed, our memories shape us and make us who we are.

Keep making beautiful memories.

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♬ Relaxing Japanese-style piano song inviting nostalgia – Akiko Akiyama