The tricks that memory plays
...or was Michelangelo's Pieta really that small?
Before the visit to Rome last month, I remembered very little of my first visit as a student over thirty-five years ago. My old friend Ana and I were doing an interrail tour of Europe; we spent three days altogether in Rome, lodging in a seedy youth hostel around the Termini. We rushed through the Vatican Museums and St Peter’s Basilica, climbed on the cupola, and promptly ticked Rome off the list, before getting on the train to the next destination. I was 22, fresh-faced and green in judgment.
Among the few things I remember was the huge, larger than life statues inside St Peter’s: Michelangelo’s Pieta and St Peter, with its foot worn out by the touch of millions of pilgrims. Only…last month I realised that they were nothing like huge and larger than life: they are much smaller than I remembered.
Oh, and I had no recollection of Bernini’s stunning sculpted canopy (baldacchino) that stands over St Peter’s tomb. How is this even possible?
What happened here? Had I formed memories that had to do more with my perception than with objective reality, and I continued to preserve them for three-and-a-half decades?
Those that know me wonder at the (usually useless but precise) details I remember: when a distant cousin died, the birthday of a classmate I haven’t seen for decades, the blouse I wore on a first date. Even the exact phrase my mother used to put me down when she caught me modelling my hair on her mother’s engagement photo.
But if I remembered famous statues as hugely larger than they really are, and I had no memory at all of the beauty and the size of the canopy - nay, its very existence! - what else do I misremember or have forgotten entirely?
The implications for a memoir and life-writer are clear: have I overestimated the reliability of my memory? Do I trust my memory possibly more than I should? Is this going to be another writing block added to the long list of all the other blocks? All these questions have been milling around my head since the Vatican visit. Well, yes, the memories of these statues were factually wrong. But emotionally?
The late 80s was a period of transition in my native Greece, which had just joined the (then) European Community. I had already set my sights upon leaving home for London, that would become my home. That Interrail European tour, crossing Italy, Austria, Germany, France and ending in London felt like the dress rehearsal of a whole life. Is it possible that the prospect of the daunting reality of a future in unfamiliar but alluring places was projected on the two statues?
Four weeks after the return from Rome and the trip still feeds prompts. Would you believe that I still dream of walking in cobblestone alleys and stepping into churches I have already been in, as if for the first time? Is my subconscious trying to give a message? Go down into alleys you have never been before; have another look at what you think you know well with fresh eyes. I still need to work out what all this means for my life writing.
I don’t think I have ever asked so many questions in a single post before. Do you have any comments? I’d love to hear them.
And the rest of the strands…
Memoir and Life Writing Group
And all these questions lead me on to a pursuit very close to my heart: a small group of memoir and life writers from across the world continue to meet up online on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at the London Writers’ Salon. Here’s what our plan of work looks like now.
Looking forward to a Q & A session with Rosa Wang, author of
Strong Connections: Stories of Resilience from the Far Reaches of the Mobile Phone Revolution, in our meet-up on 3 March 2022. She has been a member of an earlier incarnation of the Memoir and Life Writing group in the London Writers’ Salon, and it is so inspiring to see the project that was halfway this time last year is making its way into the world now.
Following an interesting discussion on the challenge of presenting oneself through bio notes, Cecilia Wessinger raised the question of intersectionality. Dionne Elizabeth shared her blog post on exactly this topic, and a very interesting discussion followed. From personal experience, most of us seemed to have quite a bit to say on labels that don't fit, on pushing back on labels altogether, on the challenges of putting together a bio. As a way into getting to know and support each other better, we agreed to work on writing a bio (possibly light-hearted and humorous) for a future meet-up.
And here is a provisional list of topics we have considered exploring together in the group: how to cope with emotional fallout after writing difficult scenes (probably my own no. 1 writing block); practical tips on putting together a non-fiction proposal by Jo Blackshaw; autofiction; ethics in memoir writing; and more to come.
Got a Memoir/Life Writing project in the works? Or would you just like to meet other MLW writers? To join our supportive group, head over here.
And if you would like to join hundreds of other writers writing in community, join the free Writers’ Hour; one of the four daily sessions is bound to fit in with your daily schedule.
52 Weeks towards a Good Life
Along with a group of friends at the Stoic Salon, we are now at the end of Week 4 of Live Like a Stoic: 52 Exercises for Cultivating a Good Life by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez.
So far we have worked on these weekly lessons:
the dichotomy of control: what lies within our control and what doesn’t
focusing on what really lies within our control
looking at our problems from the outside in, as we would at someone else’s problems
taking the perspective on another person’s feelings
Weekly checkouts are optional, but I find that they help me to reflect on and consolidate the week’s lesson. Here’s what I wrote at the end of Week 3. The lesson was to ‘learn’ to talk to myself about my own problems in the way I would speak to a friend dealing with similar problems. The lesson also suggested addressing myself in writing with ‘you’, as Marcus Aurelius does in the Meditations. As I understand it, this practice helps me look at issues as an outside observer rather than as an involved participant, and helps create cognitive distancing. (If I may be forgiven for going off on a tangent once again, it also helps me comprehend that the suffering self is different from the observing self.)
In the same week, the Universe handed me the opportunity to practise the lesson: I met up with an old, dear friend after a very long time. As she talked about her issues with husband and offspring, I felt as if she were a mirror of myself in my forties, when I was facing the very same issues. I tried to respond in the way I should have responded to myself, had I known better at the time. It felt as if I were talking to my younger self in the measured tones that I did not have when I was at her age.
It is a work in progress. Four weeks gone, forty-eight weeks to go. Would you like to join us? There is still time!
The heart meets the (left) hand and embraces imperfection
