Tuesday, June 14, 2011

sense memory

Smells, sights, sounds, textures that take you to another place. This happens to me a lot, probably because I have an extremely over active imagination. That always sounds like a good thing when you're in kindergarten and your teacher is complimenting your mom about your "vivid sense of imagination" but it turns out not to be a good thing when you live alone and imagine just all the ways a person could break in and kill you, or when you're in the woods and start thinking about bear attack scenarios. But like it or not I'm all imaginative and shit, and I have a pretty good memory. And great hearing- but that's another story.

But sense memory... I have a lip gloss that I never used but kept around because when I smelled it I remembered being 6 and playing with "my little ponies." I guess it was this kind of plastic-y girly powdery smell. I drive home and the sun is setting, casting a glow on the trees and I'm remembering walking home from the bus in high school in fall. It's October so it's getting darker out and I'm excited about Halloween. It's warm in the day but cold when the sun goes down and I hate that, because when it's so cold and dark I can hear this weird roaring sound that I think comes from the airport but it makes me nervous, like when you see a storm coming from a long way away.

I don't know if this counts as sense memory but every time I'm reading a news article about a court case and see the words "not guilty" I think of my dad. When I was 9 or so I was asking him about something and asked why they weren't found "innocent." He looked at me and said "Emma no one is ever found innocent, they can only be found not guilty. No court will ever declare someone innocent." He looked at me and all the sudden my childish notions about justice evaporated. I realized that once you are accused you can never again be innocent. Once that happens it doesn't matter if you really are innocent or not, a line is drawn and now the best you can do is convince someone you're not guilty. Today I was reading an article about "the Iceman" and it said "he was found innocent in connection with the death" and immediately I thought "you can't be found innocent, TIME magazine, you can only be found not guilty."
And this song reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on. You'd think it's Russia but it's not. And ignore the weird video, the song's title is "City of the green color" so take that how you will

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