22 August Monday

I once heard an interview on NPR with a psychiatrist who is an expert on memory. She said that we begin to forget an event around ten seconds after it happens. After that, much of what we remember is invented by the brain. A great experiment is to recall the scene of a movie that you really love and try to play it in your head. Then, go watch that movie. Did you it look like you remember? Were the characters in the same place? Was the furniture arranged correctly, to the best of your recollection?

This psychiatrist went on to recount an amazing story about her being convinced by a family member that she witnessed a tragedy as a child, when in fact she was not there. An amazing story that is hers and not mine, and so I won’t tell it here. In part because, well, I’ve forgotten some of the details. The point is that many of our memories, or our memories of memories are supported by our senses. They can flashback to the very scene.

Smell, I’ve been told, has the longest memory of any of the senses. Summer rain may remind us of childhood, or moth balls remind us of a certain aunt’s house. The scent of cured meat like hot dogs remind some people of baseball. The smells of Christmas: cinnamon, orange, mint, the alcoholic breath of old people.

Some cooking scents remind me of certain people. The smell of cooking onions and celery reminds me of my mother. Peppers, tomatoes, and tex-mex spices I associate with my maternal grandmother, buttery pie crust and potatoes with my paternal grandmother. All real things, real and true, for me at least.

End of Part One. Part two is even better, this was a preamble. In Part Two, I’ll discuss the sense memory of cooking a dish, and I will misremember something that is annoying me.