I remember – 20mins of writingSo I actually ‘wrote’ this put pen to paper – which is why it’s significantly shorter than it would be had I typed for 20mins – at the end of it my hand ached! Though I should write (pen and paper) more it slows me down and allows me to think a little clearer – though my hand hasn’t got a spell checker – I’ll have to ask for that in the next model!
Alright – here it is – the pen to paper now put into electronic format
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As I sit here and try to write I remember my mind goes blank. Is that normal? Over thinking, trying too hard to recall.
I’ve been to Canberra three times. I only remember once. It’s a strange feeling to be told you have been to a place in your past but have no recollection of it at all. Even worse when photographs containing you are shown in front of famous landmarks of Canberra and still no memory of the event.
My mind works like a little movie sliced into segments when I think of events from my past. Holidays at Evans Head, Riding my brothers BMX on the beach, paddling up the river in the canoe.
My childhood is a happy one from memory leaving in the mornings at the weekends to do whatever I wanted from riding my skateboard in the school grounds to going down the river and exploring, long before the days of ‘unsafe to do anything alone’ I don’t ever remember feeling unsafe as a child we were always taught not to talk to strangers and I remember once a man tried to lure my friend and I into his car with lollies telling us he was a friend of my mums. I remember running as fast as I could to my Nanna’s house and telling her what happened by the time she got out the front the car was driving off around the corner. Did I potentially cheat death or sexual assault of some kind that day?
I remember walking to school with my brother, not knowing how to tie my shoe laces and so just wound them up around my legs like ballet shoes tucking the ends into my socks. They fell down onto the wet grass and my brother chastised me for being stupid and then tied my shoes for me, showing me what to do ‘for next time’
Christmas was always exciting as a child, the ritual of Christmas eve and the ‘must go to church’ I hated church, all the standing up and sitting down, the Shhh and not allowed to talk – not even whisper! Being dragged to ‘confession’ a few days prior so we could absolve our sins and be allowed to go to communion. My cousins and I would compete to see who got the most ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Hail Mary’s’ by making stuff up in the confessional. The more lies told in there the more ‘pennant’s we’d have to pay!
Waking up Christmas morning to see what ‘Santa’ had brought being excited to un-wrap gifts from under the tree, spending time with extended family, and more gift unwrapping. Playing for hours with my cousins in the back yard of my grandparents, before coming home to play with the toy’s that where too big to leave the house like the year we got a trampoline.
I remember we never had Christmas lunch at my parent’s house – we always alternated between my mum’s parents and my dad’s parents. In 1999 when I was living in Brisbane I decided that, that year would be different – My brother and I would have Christmas at mum and dad’s – so we invited all the extended family to my parents house – my mum’s side of the family, and my dad’s side – all converged on River street. I’m glad that it all came together as that was the last Christmas we had with my grandfather on my dad’s side- he died on the 31st of January 2000.
Photo’s are a key to your past to memories and moment of the here and now that once taken instantly become the there and then.
I remember a happy childhood filled with Christmas, and family gatherings, even if it meant having to go to church, and lying in competition to see who got handed the largest amount of pennants. Memories flood into my mind – but there again I’ve been to Canberra three times and only remember visiting once as an adult in 2006 – so my memory is clearly not very reliable.
Turning a section into a paragraph
This exercise sees me take a ‘slice’ of the above ‘I Remember’ and put more detail into it as a paragraph.I remember the light shining though the stain glass window, throwing light onto the rich thick carpet like shadow puppets dancing outside.
The hard cold seat of the pew, various thoughts running through my mind as I waited my turn. Click the light went out and my cousin would step from behind the thick tapestry curtain.
I’d whisper ‘What did you get?’
He’d answer “Three Our Fathers, and Four Hail Marys’'
I’d step into the closet like booth that smelt like mothballs, and hear the click of the light go on outside allowing others to know the confessional was in use.
Then out would come the line ‘Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been 12 moths since my last confession” followed by my mountain of lies in hope that I could out do my cousin for the amount of pennants I’d have to do.
