Memory.
What is your very first memory?
What if it wasn't true?
What if WHO you are is based on lies-okay so not lies but mistruths and faulty memories?
This is what I'm thinking about right now.
Shortly after I closed up shop at the end of June, ready to head out into the garden for the summer, I received an email from a gallery curator asking me to participate in a show next April.
You may recall (or not - here's the link) my answer to question 9 ("Describe THE thing that would make you think 'I've made it'") in 10 Questions for Artists was "A gallery owner that comes to ME and asks for a solo show. Yep. That'd pretty much be nirvana for me."
If you ever doubted for one minute that The Universe is always listening, trying to help you out? Let this be a gentle nudge to say, "Yes. Yes it is!" Thoughts become things, my friend. And lest you get all hot under the collar saying, "Yah. Well, Jen. I've wanted to earn a million dollars (big house, fancy job etc etc) and it hasn't happened!" a couple of hints/tips:
- Write that shit down! A cloudy, ill fleshed-out, fleeting, passing thought isn't the easiest thing to manifest. Writing it down helps YOU articulate exactly what you want.
- Sometimes what you receive doesn't end up looking exactly how you thought it might. Likely you weren't completely clear in your own head OR The Universe has something else planned for you. Patience Grasshopper. Go back to #1. Refine. Hone. Get more specific. It will happen. This I know.
Anyway. So of course I said YES. And then put it on the back burner as I went outside for the summer. Fast forward a few months and I'm starting to think about the show and its loose theme of "the past" or memory.
Recently, I was reading "Sweetland" by Michael Crummey and came across this passage:
"He hated confronting those lost moments, being presented with some deail from his past and having to look on it like a stranger. It made his life feel like a made-up thing. A net full of holes."
It landed. Hard.
I've always had a very, VERY good memory. Conversations decades old, word for word, childhood situations, people, faces, names. I was the family historian. "Just ask Jen" was the go to around our house. Then I read a study suggesting our memories are not as good as we think they are and that some psychologists believe we may even make things up as time goes on. THAT gave me pause. If what I remember isn't accurate - or worse, completely fabricated - it truly does make "life feel like a made-up thing". A net full of holes, indeed.
I find the whole idea fascinating. What defines us? Which memories make us who we are? Where is the line? What would you have to find out that wasn't real (or was!) to sit you on your butt, to readjust your sense of self? Some memories are sweet but never made themselves building blocks of your persona. Others are integral to creating who we are. Matthew McConaughey relates a story where he thought he'd won a contest as a child only to find out years later he was only runner-up. Pretty sure he didn't retire to his bed moaning "What IS true?!?" even though the mistruth of winning likely had a huge impact on who he became. And does it even matter? Say I found out that I wasn't actually perceived as "the family historian"; would that change my feelings about myself? My position in our family? (Note: VERY possibly!) Which of course leads down that brambly path of what IS real, anyway?!?
I sure would love to hear what you think. How you would answer the two questions:
What are your defining childhood memories?
What if they weren't true?
Comment here, on Instagram or shoot me a DM or email. I sure would appreciate it!