the sharp taste of imaginary memories

I figured I would start my blog off with a post that sheds some light on me, personally. Here goes:

Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not recall a great deal about my early childhood. I’m not sure why this is, but I simply don’t have many memories of that time period, or at least memories of specific events or occurrences. I can recall generalities including the house and neighborhood I grew up in, etc., but for some reason some events have simply slipped away from me. Nothing traumatic or anything, just normal occurrences that my sister or parents will mention and I simply can’t seem to dredge up a substantial recollection.

One running joke between us started during one such conversation, when I brought up two memories I could recall with ease, but was soon informed that they were indeed complete fabrications. I understand it’s not completely unheard of for a child to have a dream which they subconsciously transform into reality, but this still came as something of a shock at the time, particularly for one of them which I was absolutely sure actually happened. The other, upon re-examination, wasn’t so hard to give up as wishful thinking.

This more easily discarded remembrance took place in the backyard of my grandfather’s home in Panama City, Florida. He lived right on the bay, so I would always walk the wall with a net, catching all sorts of sea creatures to pass the time. We would even occasionally see dolphins or porpoises frolicking about, which was always fun. However, the memory I had was of seeing a killer whale breach the water in a magnificent aerial display that would rival the shows at SeaWorld. I carried that memory with me for many years, thinking I had seen something truly amazing. Of course in hindsight, it’s absolutely absurd to think that a killer whale would be in the bay at all, and I’m pretty sure they don’t thrust themselves out of the water in such a forceful fashion unless they’re playing with a seal or something before devouring it as a snack. At least that’s the only reason I can think of, and I don’t feel like looking anything up about it, so we’ll go with that. Either way, that wonderful memory has been dashed, and although I still think of it fondly from time to time, I have to shake my head at my idiocy for entertaining the idea, albeit briefly, that it could have been real.

I just knew for SURE that the other memory was an actual event. Let me first preface this with the fact that my teeth in general are fairly decent (they could be whiter, I know) but there are a couple in the lower front that are ever-so-slightly crooked, though definitely not enough to worry about getting them fixed. So, my “dreamory” was that I was with my father in his green Suzuki jeep, on our way back, presumably, from the dentist since my four lower front teeth were gone and in their place I had a huge wad of cotton to soak up the blood. I distinctly remember the copper metallic taste, and mild discomfort of having the large wad of cotton in my mouth. I recalled that we stopped at a gas station so my dad could fill up, and I remember sitting in the jeep while he took care of that and then went inside to pay. I think I could even remember the smell of gasoline, but that could just be because I know that that is something you could assume you’d smell at a station that sells the stuff. Then we left, and the memory fades away from there. I was shocked when I found out this wasn’t even remotely true; it was one of my most vivid memories, and to have its validity utterly eradicated was unsettling.

I have since come to grips with the fact that these events didn’t happen, and keep them now in a separate place, away from the true, sparsely planted memories of my increasingly distant childhood. However, given the currents and eddies that stirred them up from the ever-building sediment, I feel that I will always have these fabrications readily available to me for a very long time, longer even than some of those less remarkable truth-shaded former realities that will eventually be long forgotten in the clutter of remembrances from the shortly-departed present.