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Forgotten and Hidden Stories

My posts over the past two years have explored different ways we can think about life, poetry and fiction. I have asked how each creatively informs and interweaves with the other to bring insight into our writing and ourselves. Today, I look at how our minds bring forgotten and hidden stories to life and how life gives its gifts to memory.

So, come on a journey into the notion of mind with me as the control group. Not a very scientific approach, I know, but it suffices for talking about the workings of memory and story, life and the page. As a cultural anthropologist who meditates, I am intrigued by the interdependence of such nebulous things.

A Buddhist Approach

I know little about the psychology either of memory or mind and apologise in advance to specialists in those areas.

My approach is to call the activity of memory, our consciousness if you like, ‘mind’ — in the Buddhist sense. I take mind as a sensory organ that responds to both external and internal stimuli like sound, touch, taste, smell, thought and both physical and emotional feeling.

Mind in Buddhism, Ceta, (pr. ch), is seen as a sensory organ like the ears, eyes, nose and so on. Although insubstantial, the mind is not unlike the brain in that it can be understood metaphorically as having conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces which we might relate to memory. Like grammar, though, while it is necessary for comprehension, it is not the story.

The mind remembers, forgets and performs the archaeological search otherwise known as recall, to produce memories which, in Buddhist terms, are ‘thoughts’. Both the mind and the stories it remembers are sublime; each as elusive as the other. As a sense organ, the mind responds not only to internal but also external stimuli, some of which vary in kind.

Listening vs Hearing

How often do we as individuals stop listening to someone the moment they say something that resonates with our experience? I think we all do it to a greater or lesser degree. I call this the ‘I remember when’ syndrome. In these acts of remembering, we pay less attention to our friend as we turn inwards to our memories and, more often than not, we will fail to comment on what they are telling us and start talking about ourselves.

I am sure I’m not the only person who is put off by the inflammatory phrase of disinterest: ‘I hear you’. However, I raise this not in judgement but to demonstrate for it tells us a lot about how memory, mind, or if you prefer, consciousness operates.

In meditation, specifically Buddhist inspired reflection, we learn how to relinquish the need to hold and examine our every thought as it comes to mind by learning to be mindful. Mindfulness practice trains us to attend to others wholly. From it, we learn not only to ‘hear’ but also to heed, or listen deeply for greater understanding.

Landscapes of Remembering

For Australia’s First Nations people, intricate connectors trace nature’s landscape, creating stories of place and substantive ideas of selfhood. In other words, through centuries, they have walked collective meaning into their world by telling the stories and enacting rituals of Ancestral travels to create a unique and numinous landscape.

In a related but inverted vein in The Practice of Everyday Life, French sociologist, Michel de Certeau speaks about the way we in the West create meaning as we walk the city. Within the pre-existing context of power’s grids and layout of the buildings, boundaries, roads and institutions that confine us, we lay down individuating meanings and thus embed ourselves in place in the everyday affair of living. My story is like that.

My Story as Example

When I drive around Adelaide and surrounds, my biography rears up to greet me. Admittedly, I usually drive alone, and, after years of meditation, I am attuned to how my mind is behaving. But I guess that even with others in the car, you might experience a similar thing.

Words are clumsy in explaining this but, every time I drive down Port Road, a straight, pine-tree-lined stretch of bitumen leading to the Port Willunga and Aldinga Beach Esplanade, my first, violent husband comes to mind. The angry detail of the past arises in my mind even though it is over 60 years since he taught me to drive there.

A place can evoke memories as alive today as they were when laid down. When I pass a couple of houses in Adelaide where I partied as a university student, I smell dope.

Profound external events have a similar effect. When my eldest son died at 43 in December 2014, my grief took me on an internal journey through his life from newborn to adult. If you asked me to tell that story from ‘memory’, I simply could not do it, but memories surfaced to meet the moment; in that moment.

Getting Real

If the mind is fundamentally a connector, no matter how real our memories, how true is our story, how much of what we remember can we trust? To answer this we need to look at how we tell stories.

The everyday stories we tell about our lives, both to others and ourselves, constitute our identity. Over time, they combine to give an impression of who we are in the world and there is no doubt that we edit as we go! 

In developing a presentational self through stories, we create reality as we want it to appear. We create a persona; a front or a mask. However, when it comes to life-writing, we need to dig deep to go beyond such conscious constructions of self.

To find the truth, we need to bypass rehearsed stories, those we ‘see’ in our mind’s eye as though we were watching television with ourselves as the hero.  Such stories do not read well on the page precisely because, as products of the intellect, they tend to bypass the senses.

Even in fiction, unless we pay attention to sensation, we can never access the rough, smelly, tasty, noisy, colourful, tactile and marvellous world we really inhabit, and through which we hook readers.

To take readers on a journey we must evoke the senses. But, how do we access the sensations to create magic on the page? The best lessons come from Life Writing instruction.

Original Memory

In fiction, we bring personal experience to play to evoke events and moments in a character’s journey. It is not just ‘write about what you know’. To make both fiction and a life story real for readers, we need to draw on what we know at the sensory level and let the intellect provide ornamentation.

In The Memoir Book, Patti Miller tells us that original memory is poetic, not prosaic! It works through metaphor and symbol by linking things that we otherwise keep separate when we think about them or analyse. Notably, as she argues, poetic memory is triggered by the senses.

Miller argues that, given a chance, the right circumstances or a sense-trigger, the mind searches the core of our bodies and souls to bring the past into the present replete with its smells, tastes, sights, sounds, thoughts and feelings; original feelings. The truest stories come after.

The Archaeology of Mind at Work

When poetic answers come, time disappears. Given that we are accustomed to seeing our lives as a chronology or ‘real sequence’, I find this pretty interesting.

Your memory or mind, Miller says, is a poet…

…it has stored experiences in imaginative patterns where the sound of marching music will lead you to the school verandah and the teacher leaning over you smelling of ink and the boy pulling a face in the next seat who later died in an accident. Go into life writing via this door of memory, rather than the door of topics, and you are entering into the imaginative, creative part of your mind. You are much more likely to write with vividness and clarity.

Patti Miller in Writing Your LIfe: p.79

Embodied Memory and Associative Recall

I spoke earlier about remembered stories, those we rehearse in order to show the world who we want it to think we are. Patti Miller shows us a productive way past that. What I am largely talking about here is embodied memory and, by extension associative recall. Similar ideas, slightly different descriptors.

Embodied memory, like Miller’s ‘original memory’ is something like knowing how to ride a bike, or drive a car without all the clumsiness that goes with learning to do these things. Embodied memory comes into play, as I described earlier, in the face of significant events like the death of a loved one. It can erupt unbidden in particular places or while watching a movie, as in deja vu.

Triggers often bring to mind something you had forgotten, which is so deep inside it is part of you, and I call this type of remembering associative recall. I first recognised associative recall when working in the field with Australia’s First Nations people and, the story stuck.

A man in his forties suddenly stood up to speak at a meeting about sacred sites on Country, that he and others had been working on with me for several weeks under intense political pressure. I was there to create the record.

Everyone became silent when, trembling just a little as though in awe he began to speak about the way he had tagged along out bush with his uncles and other Old Men as a kid, often a bit bored. He didn’t realise the significance of what they were passing on to him.

Close to tears, he went on to confide to those present that in recalling and telling those old stories during fieldwork and at the meeting, their true value struck him for the first time, like a bolt of lightning.

Speaking of Country brought him to the realisation that he was on the way to becoming an Old Man for the next generation. The external moment triggered memories that brought realisation; associative recall.

Summary

It might be strange to see the world through an anthropological and Buddhist lens, but it offers an alternative way of accessing the truth of ‘what we know’. It opens doors to our inner selves in ways that the intellect doesn’t allow. Of course, whatever we write must be scrutinised, crafted. But authentic detail comes from original or embodied memory.

Before publication, we need technique and a reliable editor!

A Tip

If you are writing about your life, remembering the past can be both poignant and painful. Some people must take pills and potions. But for most of us, medication merely masks the truth. So if you don’t need it try writing about the bad stuff. That can be productive and helpful.

Try This

Take a piece of memorabilia, a precious object or a treasured photograph. Hold, touch, view and then reflect on it with eyes closed for 5-7 minutes. Put the item down, and write ‘stream of consciousness’ for 10 minutes.

Next, choose an item with an odour, aroma or fragrance that you either like or loathe. If you don’t have one at hand, close your eyes and focus on a smell that evokes a particular memory that resurfaces at each encounter. Examples include a storm building, fire the beach, the stench of alcohol, hospital, food, perfume, flowers or even formaldehyde.

When you’re ready, write whatever comes into mind about the moment evoked by this smell. Write furiously until you run out of puff, without pausing to edit or think. Then, take the two pieces together to create a poem or story.

Putting the two pieces together is a trick that bypasses the thinking process, and allows you to find wonderful new stories. Perhaps give one moment of recall to each of two characters. Play with it.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you find the post and exercises useful.

My Peripatetic Life

Now 77, I’ve moved on average, every 18 months throughout my life. To date, I’ve set up home in 50 dwellings in three countries — Australia, Japan and Sri Lanka — and numerous towns and suburbs across Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. I moved with my parents when I was young, with children till they left the nest and occasionally with, but mostly without, various husbands.

My lifetime residential record includes eight hotels, three guest houses, a government hostel, a boarding house, a rooming house, a residential delicatessen and numerous free-standing houses, units and flats, not to speak of the occasional short-term outback donga. I’ve shared places, rented others, owned a few and now live in a retirement village. I’ve even had a stint in a high-rise public housing tower.

A decade or so ago, I compiled a list of my dwellings. I draw on a few below to highlight odd moments as a basis for considering the dislocation entailed in moving. It is sometimes hard to make a home.

Growing Up in Pubs

In bios for poetry and writing, I often say I was born and bred in pubs. It is true. My father was a publican, and I list above the hotels I grew up in. I also worked as a receptionist, barmaid, waitress, cook or housemaid in the last four and, in others in various places when times got tough. Even as a mature university and postgrad student with three kids, I was weekend breakfast cook and housemaid at the Hotel Franklin.

The Marunouchi Hotel in Tokyo, Japan, was commandeered for use by the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) and refurbished for purpose and managed by my father, Stan Warrell, promoted to the rank of Major for the role.

I was a sullen and lonely child, and although I was safe, I was isolated and often alone in Japan and daydreamed a lot. I didn’t like my nursemaid. I wanted mum and was only truly happy when touring with her. However, our Japanese chauffeur Kanamtsu and a bellboy called ‘Micky’ whose Japanese name I never knew spoilt me. I adored them.

Take a moment to think about the photo of me with two American boys, brothers and children of one of dad’s American counterparts. Nobody considered it wrong to pose children on a statue of the Bodhisattva, Konnan (Chinese, Quan Yin).

My parents took occasional weekend leave in Nikko, where dad played golf with his military friends while mum drank with their wives. I played with naked Japanese children in a nearby rockpool and learned to speak a little Japanese. An old woman my mother inaccurately called mamasan took pity and fed me fluffy steamed rice when I visited her kitchen. I still love plain rice.

In the early 1950s, we moved into the New Albury Hotel. On the cusp of womanhood. I fell in love there with Elvis Presley and had one close friend whose father worked on the railways. Most parents did not approve of my hotel environment. It was in this hotel that my new brother spoilt my single-child status, but a lesbian waitress on staff befriended me and taught me how to play chess. I adored her. One day, she disappeared.

I later discovered that mum had sacked her to protect me. In her defence, years later, when Mum learned that my brother was gay, it made her love him more. In the New Albury Hotel, a fat, female cook took pity on me and allowed me to sit in her pantry to devour two packets of Arnott’s Milk Coffee biscuits after school. Nobody sacked her or the young, foreign kitchenhand who flirted with me before puberty.

Boarding House Life

For me as a child, the boarding house at 7 Redan Street, St Kilda, was my most nurturing home, even though my father, being in the Army, was away a lot. I adored this Redan Street dwelling. We lived here both before, and after my father’s military tour of Japan.

We had an upstairs room where we played a game, calling each other mummy frog, daddy frog and baby frog. After Japan, we sat cross-legged on the floor to eat at our prized Japanese chow table. I remember how big the double bed seemed. I slept on a divan. The building is now up for sale on Realestate.com as an expensive ‘illustrious c1888 solid brick Victorian residence’.

Guest Houses

After the New Albury Hotel, my parents bought a guest house called Tara. A red-headed young journalist staying as a guest made me blush when he wrote this poem in my autograph book for my 13th birthday.

In my late teens, I lived in a couple of other guest houses, one in  Bondi, the other in Rushcutters Bay near Kings Cross. I could write books about both, but I’ll just tell you that I nearly fainted one pay-night in a Bondi fish and chip shop while waiting for my hamburger to cook.

Two Sri Lankan students in Australia on the Colombo Plan kindly walked me home that night and took me on tour next day to see The Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains with their posh friend who had a car. They urged me to return to my violent first husband because, they said, a young woman should not be alone or without a husband in a place like Bondi. Bless them. I did try, but it was a disaster.

Another night, two Bondi cops stalked me in their police vehicle as I walked home on the then mandatory high heels from a bus stop after work in the dark. They invited themselves into my boarding house room. Intimidating, handsome and in lust. Finally, I squirmed my way out of trouble by agreeing to bring a friend on another night. Next day, I moved.

A Hostel in Darwin and the House that Changed Everything

In the early 1960’s I lived in a Government Hostel in Darwin in a group of buildings that extends from Mitchell Street through to the Esplanade. It is now backpacker accommodation.

A decade or so later, hippies invaded Lameroo beach opposite the hostel. While they hung in tree houses on the hill leading down to the beach, swam naked in the sea-baths, smoked dope and horrified everyone, I was busy playing housewife in a new police house in an outer suburb until in 1974, Cyclone Tracy blew it away. Soon after that, my marriage broke up and blew me off with three little children under four.

Dislocation

If we accept that the idea of home is a tale of many mansions: of growing up, love, loss, disaster, recovery and, ultimately a place of belonging, then moving is a story of change. A new location often brings the transformation of identity. A move can also entail a shift in status as in my marital breakup.

But there is more to it. Cyclone or not, whenever we move into a new house, our bodies are extracted from a web of places, people, networks, activities, feelings and attachments. We have to start pretty much from scratch making new networks and connections in a process that we loosely call ‘settling in’.

But moving dislocates. Despite the internet, moving house rips bodies and minds out of their previous environment. It is thus a much bigger deal than many think. Psychologists tell us moving is one of the highest stress factors after the death of a loved one. What they don’t say is that, over time, connections and memories fade; continuity is erased.

Few people think of themselves as organisms out of place when we move, but that is what we are. The first time I sought a visa to travel to Sri Lanka, the question asking who my father was, tickled my sense of the ridiculous but it tells us something about belonging.

In Sinhalese culture, when someone wants to know who you are, people use the phrase, ‘where is your village?’ (koheede gama?’) Together with Sinhalese surname endings this tells a tale of caste and family. In Aboriginal society, country and family constitute identity. There is consonance.

L= Buddhist Dagaba, or reliquary mound.

Packing itself takes a toll on both body and mind. Unpacking symbolises the discomfort of dislocation. Unless we’re smart enough to put the kettle, toaster and iron at the top of a box marked ‘kitchen’, we are powerless to find comfort on arrival. And, when the removalists leave, there we are, bereft with a new mountain to climb.

Packing cases by the door.

Just yesterday, I read an article in The Monthly, which makes a similar connection to the one I allude to above between Sri Lankan and Aboriginal culture. It may seem a bit off-topic, but it is an insightful read in its own right exploring as it does the significance of the body in space. Drawing on the work of Bas Luhrmann and David Gulpilil in my favourite movie ‘Australia’, the article speaks more broadly about things we often fail to notice.

Displaced People

Millions in this world stand alone to leave with nothing in their foray into the unknown. Their order of terror and courage is hard to conceive.

Despite my discomforts, I hope this short exploration of the dislocation of moving home resonates enough to let you consider with compassion what migrants, asylum seekers and refugees go through. Can you imagine being ripped from the bosom of loved ones, often to become stateless and homeless for years in teeming refugee camps, unable to re-embed yourself in the fullness of life?

In 2018 World Vision wrote that “Most people remain displaced within their home countries, but about 25.9 million people worldwide have fled to other countries as refugees. More than half of the refugees are children. In 2018, 13.6 million people were newly displaced, either as refugees or IDPs (internally displaced people).”

The figure of 25.9 million refugees worldwide is more than the entire population of Australia and, at the risk of repeating, half of these 25.9 million refugees are children.

UNHCR recently reported that 79.5 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by the end of 2019. See the details here.

In Summary

What has emerged for me in writing this post is that at worst, I had a safe but somewhat isolated childhood. I was lucky enough to be able to seek comfort in books and, all the while, I dreamed of being a writer. As a young woman, life was not as safe for me, but I always had the love of my family. Having no single place to call home meant that my parents’ deaths cast me adrift. I had nowhere to belong.

One of the reasons I take friendship so seriously I think is that I lack any sense of continuity in time or place. Apart from my children, few people in my life today have known me for much more than a decade. I have led a fortunate but dislocated life. What I have shared here is a mere taste of its diversity.

A Writing Tip

Try going through your life in terms of where you have lived and how. Make a list and see where that takes you as I have here. That would be a pretty good start if you are interested in writing your life story.

If you have a particular period in your life that stands out, write a memoir.

Happy Writing