Look Back In Wonder
How will we remember this strange and unsettling year of COVID-19? The smells, sounds and sensations of 2020 will leave an indelible mark, but if our memories are slightly rose tinted, that might not be such a bad thing.
Today, in the waning months of 2020, I am planning a COVID Box. It’ll be a time capsule of sorts, and in it I’m going to put photos and newspaper clippings and anything else that captures the mood of the times.
Why? Because memories, like their owners, are fallible. And yet they are the threads with which we weave our personal histories and knit meaning from the world. The memories our kids have of this particular time will sew themselves into the stories they will tell their own youngsters when asked, ‘Mum, what was it like not going to school? And not seeing your friends or even your family?’ How strange that must sound to a child in 2030 (it sounds strange even now).
I am also aware that my personal retrospect-o-scope tends to add a rose-coloured filter, making reminiscences appear less difficult than they actually were. (I may not be alone here; in fact, I remember a [male] obstetrician once saying that if new mothers were able to recall every painful detail of childbirth, then there would be a lot more one-child families). We all have different lenses in our retrospect-o-scopes, we all recall things differently, and I’ve had enough experience with mine (friends saying things like, ‘You really don’t remember that it rained on your wedding day?’) to know that I am a memory Pollyanna. Hence, my COVID Box will be a more honest memory keeper.
We tend to think of memories as mostly images – a best friend cutting their wedding cake, catching that sight of a newborn for the first time – but in fact memories are woven with all five of our senses.
Smell is the Prince Charming of memories, able to awaken sleeping recollections with the lightest of kisses. Just a whiff of coconut oil, for example, takes me to a Tahitian beach crowded with boisterous American college students in need of a quick tan before the end of semester break. Whereas a hint of eucalyptus is a one-way ticket home no matter where I am in the world (once, at a conference in Chicago, I perfumed my poster-presentation with eucalyptus oil hoping to attract international passers-by, but instead ended up surrounded by a gang of reminiscing Aussies). Cumin is my mum’s kitchen, watching her fill zucchinis with rice and apricots for the kind of Syrian dinners my school friends could only dream of. And strawberries (okay, they’re a taste, but that sense is really mostly smell anyway) remind my lips of their first real kiss.
The piquancy of sourdough, though, will from now on conjure my daughter working next to me in our kitchen: her furrowed brow, scientifically measuring and timing, and my slapdash she’ll-be-right-mate mixing; how her loaves rose to lofty heights while mine resembled pancakes (the recipe is going in the box).
Sounds, too, are powerful reminders. Who amongst us can hear a loudspeaker jingle echoing up the street without feeling an urgent hankering for an ice-cream cone? And no matter my age, a school bell will always make my legs feel like rushing off to class.
If smell is a Price Charming, then music is an electric shock, able to revive long-forgotten memories and jolt them into consciousness, especially ones from our youth. Dire Straits drops me into a half-star London hotel nursing one of my first girlfriends through a nasty case of food poisoning. Any track from The
Blues Brothers evokes memories of a couple of hundred late-night fans at the Valhalla Cinema (circa 1982) miming scenes from the movie. And 2020 has turned show tunes into Randy Rainbow parodies (have a listen to ‘A Very Stable Genius’ and see if you can ever forget it). Well into the future, whenever I hear one of those melodies, I’ll remember that this year wasn’t just about a virus. There was a whole lot more going on in the world.
And when there is no sound at all, well, that recalls a variety of memories because silence is not merely an absence of sound but a language all its own. Just six months ago, mornings were a cacophony of breakfasts being gobbled and school lunches being made before everyone flew out the house. Now mornings are owned by the birds, and their rhythmic breaking of the silence serves only to heighten its reverence. Morning silences will now bring to mind this island of tranquility, afforded by eschewing routine and allowing things their natural rhythm. An eerie silence, however, will recall the dead-quiet Saturday nights of our usually swinging inner-metro locale where, in years past, bedtimes had us inserting earplugs and thinking about relocating to someplace quieter, like Rome.
The sense I miss the most is touch. No amount of streaming TV shows or movies or even video meetings can replace the intimate experience of holding someone you love. I long to hug my family and close friends, and whilst I can’t put them into my COVID Box I can include a favourite newspaper clipping. It’s of a burly policeman hugging a Black Lives Matter protester and it has been pinned above my desk for months. The humanity gets to me.
But what memento will recall the uncertainty of these times? Or the loneliness for so many? Or our fervent hope for a vaccine? Physical reminders – headlines, photos, etc – won’t do these feelings justice, so it’ll be up to me to find a way of reminding myself that it wasn’t all just sourdough and show tune memes, and how privileged I am in so many ways.
My strongest memories, though, will be these: how amazingly fortunate and proud I am to be living in this corner of the world; where politicians from all sides united; where millions of citizens donned masks and washed hands and had a swab poked up their nose without complaint; and how we learnt the true meaning of keeping calm and carrying on, because that is what we did.
Maybe my COVID Box will be a little rose coloured but, if memory is to serve me well, that may not be such a bad thing after all.
“THIS YEAR WASN’T JUST ABOUT A VIRUS. THERE WAS A WHOLE LOT MOR E GOING ON IN THE WORLD.”