Memory

ראש חודש אדר, תשס"ז

It amazes me sometimes the jumbled collection of memories that are permanent residents of my brain, and the stimuli that bring them to the window for a breath of air.

There is a certain type of bird, distinctive to me only by its call, that I heard daily when I was living on kibbutz seven (!) years ago. If I ever actually saw a creature making that noise, I certainly didn't register the details of its appearance, so I really only know the sound as an abstract entity. Its association with that particular period of my life, though, is apparently very firmly rooted in my mind. I say this because I have periodically heard it since, in various settings both similar to and diverse from the kibbutz (urban locations in Israel as well as both rural and urban locations here in the U.S.), and every single time -- most recently this afternoon -- I have been instantly though ever-so-fleetingly visited by the sensation that I am on kibbutz.

This phenomenon is not unfamiliar to me, although it's more frequently triggered by smell than sound, and might bring me back to any number of distinctive situations in my life. It's not déjà vu; in fact, it's the authentic experience of memory that déjà vu attempts to mimic. But I'm not sure whether memory in most people is so often such a stark, elemental encounter, rather than a conscious mental process. Moreover, in many such cases I have found that once the stimulus is associated repeatedly with other settings, its power to yank me back to its original context is considerably dulled. Not that bird, though. He's followed me clear around the world (a couple of times) with the aura of kibbutz tied to his foot, trailing behind him in the wind ready to tag me whenever he finds a female worthy of his call.