Memory - Our Version of History :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Memory - Our Version of History How the memory works in the human mind continues to fascinate those who look. It has the ability to take in everything that our senses can give to it, store all of that information, and then recall both recent and past recollections upon our request. Patricia Hampl discovers in her own personal recollection "an unsettling disbelief about the reliability of memory, a hunch that memory is not, after all, just memory" (131). Psychiatrists, psychologists, and writers continue to study the mystery in the relationship between the mind and the memory: the objective past, the invention of our own version of history, and the symbolism in personal memories with respect to self-reflection. Hampl reflects to discover she invents in her memoir of the piano lesson. Returning thirty years later to a special place in his memory, Stephen Jay Gould "had conflated the most prominent symbol of my old neighborhood, the tennis stadium, with an important personal place" (116). I can see how this happens when a person sometimes adds a little color or excitement in retelling a story to keep the attention of the audience in everyday life. But these accomplished authors are writing memoirs, not fiction, and their memories are still partial untruths. Could my written memories contain untruths as their written memories do? The only way I may find the answer is to write about the first memory I remember as a child. It is a long time ago and I remember that I am three years old. Daddy is holding me near his shoulder and I have my arms around his neck. We are in Sacred Heart Church by ourselves. Daddy just keeps looking straight ahead. His glasses are resting on his nose that protrudes so far from his face. I think about his nose because we always play "noseys" before I go to bed at night. His tinted glasses are hiding his eyes that always smile at me. I want to see his smiling eyes but right now I can see the top of his head better. Daddy does not have much hair on the top of his head. It reminds me of when he says, "The beard on my face makes up for the lack of hair on my head." I laugh to myself and remember telling him to move his beard to the top of his head but to leave his mustache where it is.