As a girl I stayed with my grandmother most weekends and on winter nights I loved snuggling into the flannel bed sheets. After she died these passed to Mum and Dad and eventually they came to me. When their centres started to thin I patched them until I cut them down the centre and sewed the outsides together. Finally they are beyond repair but I can not let them go because they are imbued with "Grandma" and still smell distantly of sunlight soap. Moreover, they have survived at least 50 years of use while the flannel sheets I bought in the 1990's managed barely four.
Thinking of this I envision a timeline of memory persistence. My Grandma was born in 1904 and died in 1987. She acquired a household full of stuff and to have something of hers is to enable her some small existence. This puts me in mind of a Radio National show I heard about living on as a part of nature. A person may be dead but their corporeal form has been distributed and has become a part of many things and the speaker suggests the mind may also be experiencing the same phenomena. A wide, worldly, planetary consciousness. Lifiting your arm becomes the swaying of a tree and your thoughts a swam of sandflies. I will trawl the archives and see if I can find that show to share with you...AFTER I have turned these sheets into nappies for Skye.
She was born in 1903 died 1986 - yes I am certain
ReplyDeletewhat an interesting idea - love to hear more if you find it. I like to watch "Who Do You Think You Are" on SBS where family history is traced of a well-known person. It is often the case that a trait or life experience is repeated over generations without the person being aware of it. The journey back is often an emotional one even though the generations have never known each other. B
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of corporeal form being distributed and part of many things!
ReplyDelete