Memory Collective III
The Memory Collective is the recreation of a project I found on the internet one lazy afternoon at my office. The mission of the Memory Collective is to explore the nature of memory, specifically the act and art of remembering: how we do (and don't) put back together those fragments and shards, those fleeting images and lasting impressions, that reside in our memories. At the start of our project, participants each submit a memory fragment. Each fragment was then passed on to another participant to interpret through the lens of their own memory. Our memories are published as a series in this newsletter. I encourage you to notice what these memories bring up for you: images, emotions, stories, regrets, earworms. What exists on the periphery of our memory? If you missed them, here are the first and second installments.
Matt Gibson remembers Katherine Lamb’s memory:
Katherine Lamb’s memory:
I had outgrown the pony we had on loan from our family friends for the past two years. Despite my constant stubborn denial of the situation, she was to be returned to the family. It was summer, and hazy. The type of day when the nights are endlessly light and everything seems calm, and moves in slower time than usual. I was a kid and I don't think I could even fathom what worry or anxiety was.
My dad took me out to the fields, and we sat there in silence, just watching this pony mooch around, eat grass, flit away flies. And then he said to me - she doesn't know you really, and all she needs is some space and good grazing and she'll be happy. You don't have to be in the equation and she'll be just fine.
At the time I thought this was incredibly mean, and obviously just wrong too. But now that I know more of my dad, and how his mind works, he meant to say that my sadness was tied into a misplaced conception that she would be sad too. And that I should be grateful for what i'd had, and that she would move on to somewhere new, and be equally as loved.
He said that as long as you leave each other in a better place than you found each other, there never is really anything to grieve. Nothing is lost, only shared experiences and insight gained. He was talking about me, and my first pony. But this sentiment was also the same as the last paragraph of Normal People too. Something that gave me endless amusement, given who my dad is, and who Sally Rooney is.