From Burden of Self, Spring 2010

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Shedding Memories

Posted by Katie

This whole idea of shedding memories (as Toni Packer has set forth) has started to really dig into my skin and bother me. While I can see (perhaps only partially) from the outside that this idea of letting the past be in the past can be a refreshing way to enter a situation or react, I can't help but feel like at the very core it negates the many things that come with this calling up of past experience. (holy run on sentence, batman!)
Even the most terrible of experiences being brought back to life in mind and memory must be followed, and are followed (at least in my case) with the memory and realization that I lived through those moments well enough to have found myself back there again. I moved past it, kept breathing, kept moving, and am set back at square one again. For the past two years more often than not I find myself back at my parents house and my home town to attend a funeral or wake. Part of the oddness of the small(ish) town that I am from is that all of these funerals and wakes have been at the same funeral home and church. Whether it was friends, or family members or close family friends I would shake my head and take a deep breath before entering the funeral home. If I were to have been fully present or aware or in the moment without knowing that I have made it through these past experiences I would have absolutely lost it. That is a form of armor that I don't think I would ever wish upon anyone to be without. It is human to lug around these card catalogs of things that we have been through before, both good and bad. There are certain situations, at least for me, in which I will never leave them behind.