Place memories

Memories are odd little critters. Living in our minds, they hide away in the deepest corners, forgotten, blending in the darkness... only to reawaken and scurry back when we flash a light at them.

And, boy, are there a lot of ways to shine a light at memories! Friends, a words, other thoughts; the slightest mention of something related is enough. Or perhaps, it's smells, tastes, textures, or just music, or a drawing... or, what I am exploring today: places.

Lake

A location pin from OpenStreetMaps on a highway by an artificial lake

I often travel by bus between Sofia and Plovdiv.

By the highway, there is a lake.

I have no clue if it's government-owned or if it's owned by some private individual. I'm pretty sure it's toxic with the runoff from the highway, no matter how pristine it looks.

Yet, that's not at all what I think of when I see it.

When I see that lake, a memory comes back as a story. It's the meeting of elves and fairies. A monumental historic event, the first of many peace talks between the two nations of the small folk. Fairies clad in all colors and manner of petals, flutter with their wings as they graciously descend upon the lake's shore. There, serious elves arrayed in a full royal regalia of leafy greens welcome them. Before long, it would all turn into a celebration, complete with tiny bonfires beneath a full moon, tales from afar, and a bountiful feast of berries and nectar; but for now, it's all quiet, sans combined ceremonial orchestra drowning out the hushed words of officials preparing to officially sign the treaty.

It's just a fictional scene me and some friends developed for a music composition. The music didn't get far, but the story lives on, living in the memory I locked with that particular lake.

I struggle to imagine what the elves and fairies would think of the highway now passing through their domain. Perhaps, it's what drove them to unite. :grimace:

Tree

In the town I grew up at, there is a bridge. By the bridge, there is a store. By the store, a tree.

The bridge hardly brings any memories; it's a road connecting two sides of a river, and if I reflect on it, I just realize how many times I've had to cross it, and how busy it is, for all the other people crossing.
The shop, too, has changed owners at least twice since I was little.

But the tree... it's a very peculiar tree. I don't believe I've seen another tree of that species anywhere else in town; and I still recall asking grandma what species it is.
I remember going past that tree, observing its branches, leaves, and seedpods as I was went to piano lessons. My mom's memory of those times is my complaints of it raining exactly on the days I had to go to piano (especially if I forgot my umbrella). My memories are of the quiet summer afternoons, the peaceful, undisturbed rumbling of the river and rustling of the tree; and the idyllic corner of the road that I always rushed by, in a bid to be on time. Good times those were. 😊

Lessons

After a day of work in the office, I like to walk back home. Especially if it's one of the evenings I teach programming on; it beats leaving work early to catch the lesson at home, and noise cancellation works wonders despite the traffic.

Yet, because of doing that a few times over the last ~3 months, I now have a few streets in Sofia, for which I remember particular lesson I taught while walking down them. There's this corner where I was explaining circumferences and radians; a street, which takes me off my path, where a student had connection issues; a crossroad where a friend (unrelated to the lessons thing) was describing Hall effect magnetic sensors...

These memories will probably fade as I walk down the same streets more. Yet, they are still brighter waypoints than the official names of the streets; to me, at least.

Virtual maze

A 3D maze with controls that feel like flying a spaceship.

Curiously, not all place memories of mine are related to physical spaces.

There is this particular game/experiment I worked on, a 3-dimensional maze with controls that feel like flying a spaceship.

I was working on that maze while listening to a meeting where someone was discussing a court case. Now, every time I open up the maze and take a few turns, my thoughts go back to that conversation—the people, who said what, how things turned out. The very speed at which the player moves is a reminder of the people involved in said court case!
It's all a memory that wanders and echoes in a maze, lost as it seeks the exit, yet found every time I am lost with it myself.

Of course, to others, it is going to be just a maze. Perhaps, now that this article is out, they would see it as something-more-than-a-maze. But it would never have that depth of memory and emotion that it holds for me. And while I'm saddened by my inability to share the fullness of the thoughts these places scatter, I still have a spark of joy—in knowing, that even when I have forgotten, the memories live on, waiting for those places to illuminate them once again.

Articles tagged life (12/13)

Articles tagged 100DaysToOffload (39/40)

Articles on this blog (46/47)