Human Memory, Digital Peaches
This post never happened
I have a memory of something that happened.
I was homeschooled in 1st grade and that included trips to surrounding farms for meetups with other homeschoolers.
Sometime in midsummer my mother took me to visit another homeschooled boy my age who I’d never met. We arrived and had lunch, before my compatriot and I scurried outside while our mothers talked.
A creek ran through their property which was lined with over a dozen peach trees. The peaches had ripened, and many had fallen. From early afternoon to dusk my fast friend and I busied ourselves attempting to build a dam out of peaches to stop the flowing water.
That afternoon is one of my most glorious memories. I daren’t try to describe it in prose beyond what I’ve already done. For whatever reason, that afternoon made a profound impression on my psyche, something approaching a return to the Garden. I can now return to that memory fairly easily.
At summer’s end I returned to public school.
Over a decade later I asked my mom about that afternoon. I couldn’t remember the boy’s name and it was bothering me. I described the farmhouse, the property, when we would have visited, as much detail as I could muster, but she couldn’t remember any of it.
But it happened.
And here you are, reading about it, on a screen. You could archive this digitally somehow but even if you do you’ll likely not return to it again. You could print off this essay so you could refer to it in physical form later (please do, if you’re so moved), but that’s extremely unlikely.
You may even feel strangely touched by my vignette, but it won’t have the sufficient sensory force to make any kind of profound impression.
After you read this you’ll click over to another lighted page.
This post will have never even happened.
When I Was a Boy
When I was a boy
a god would often rescue me
from the shouting and violence of humans.
Then, safe and well, I would play
with flowers on the meadows,
and heaven’s breezes
would play with me.
And as you delight the heart
of plants, stretching their tender
arms toward you,
Father Helios,
so you delighted my heart,
and I was your beloved,
just like Endymion,
holy Luna!
All you faithful
friendly gods!
I wish you knew
how my soul loved you!
Naturally I couldn’t call you
by name then, nor did you use
mine, as humans do, as if
they really knew each other.
But I was better acquainted with you
than I ever was with humans.
I knew the stillness of the Aether:
I never understood the words of men.
The euphony of the rustling
meadow was my education;
among the flowers
I learned to love.
I grew up in the arms of the gods.
- Holderlin
(Strangely enough, I had just read this for the first time before I read your post:)
You’re such a pessimist! I now have your memory. I felt the warmth of the sun on my back as I built the peach dam, smelled the fragrance of the overripe fruit and heard the rushing of the water. I felt the thrill of meeting a new friend and falling into a game that needed no words of explanation to understand. Like the outstretched hand of your godlike little friend who offered you a peach, you have offered me your memory.