Have you ever wondered about your memories? I have… and it keeps coming back lately.
The other day I was having tomato soup and buttered toast, something I could eat every day but I wouldn’t because it’s just not healthy. I was quietly eating, taking in every spoonful of soup, mixed with flavoured thoughts of the past. I was wondering why I like this combination so much and it took me back to my childhood, it started when I was about five years old. My Indonesian grandmother used to live in the east of the Lowlands in a small village where she was known as the mother of the local GPs: her daughter and husband [my aunt and uncle] and probably the only dark-skinned person along with her daughter of that part of the country. We would visit her twice or three times a year, which was always something to look forward to. An adventure and not just because of the long trip there although I loved driving around the country with my dad.
My nenek was extremely talented, she loved crafting: sewing, knitting, embroidering, crocheting, etc. Most of the time she would recreate characters from children’s books or TV shows. She would keep them for a couple of months until she had about 30 and then donate them all to charity, to children. When she first arrived at the Lowlands from Indonesia, she couldn’t speak the language and in order to deal with her grief for having to leave her home country, she started to create her life story in the shape of a large embroidery. Her husband was still missing because of the war with Japan and it took her over a year to find him, scrolling through lists of dead people at the Red Cross Unit in Indonesia. They had been separated during the war and ended up in different prison camps. She had to go back to Indonesia and leave her three children in the Lowlands, to look for him.
Her embroidery would tell all the details of her life, her pain but also her joy: how she met my kakek [grandfather], her life in Indonesia, her trip to the Lowlands by boat etc. She used fabric from Indonesia so she would still have a connection with her country, from sarongs, blouses or even curtains, most of them batik. Appliques decorated with shiny, glittery tiny beads, thousands of them… It had a special place in the house, on the wall, near the stairs up to the first floor, next to all the kerisses that had been in the family for ages. Not a dominant spot though but it would definitely catch your eye somehow. It was the most amazing artwork I’ve ever seen… and as a child I would ask her over and over again to tell me her stories. She would ask me to point at a detail that I liked and she would tell me her tales. Something that could continue for hours…
She also used to teach others how to play the piano or the organ. She had a piano in the back room and an organ in the spare room upstairs. She would go to church three times a week just to play the pipe organ when no one was around and of course the finale on Sundays. I was the only one she would allow to play her piano because she said ‘I had talent’. She wanted my dad to pay for lessons but we had no room in our house for a piano and there wasn’t any money for lessons either. Although she kept reminding my dad with each visit, it didn’t matter to me, because I could ‘play’ whenever we would go there. When my grandmother became older she stopped cooking those lovely Indonesian meals for us and instead of the usual Bami Goreng we would have tomato soup and buttered toast for lunch and get Chinese takeaway later.
While I’m writing this, the memories start to come back but unfortunately not all of them, some I just can’t remember… I now realise why a simple combination of tomato soup and buttered toast seem to have left such an imprint on my mind. I still wonder though whether your memories simply vanish over the years. They seem to become more and more transparent and incomplete, like a faded picture that has been lying in the sun for too long. What’s the purpose of having memories if they seem to fade more and more each year? To me it’s kind of a freaky thought that you end up with no memories at all once they’re all vanished… I’m referring to childhood memories in particular because especially those, are the ones that bring back certain emotions, pictures and even scents or flavours…
Even though each day is another opportunity to create new ones, wouldn’t it be a shame if they would all slowly turn into dim, hard to acknowledge, unrelated ‘nothings’?…
Memories… Will they vaporise like the rain on my window?
