What is a memory?
Unlike what some right-wing politicians say, is Holland not full. Holland has about 16 million inhabitants, and has a land area of about 33,883 square kilometers. This means that the country has a population density of about 472 people per square kilometer.
Still, I never had the feeling the country is overcrowded. However, after having been abroad for a while, you start noticing things. I never did before I left, but now I do. Reason for this is that my new job is in Nijmegen, where I grew up and went to high school. Every day I commute from Amsterdam to Nijmegen - that is currently the only traveling I am doing. I do not know yet whether I will be going to the places my new company is doing business with. However, traveling was one of the reasons to take the job. And technically you can consider commuting traveling. But still, it ain't the same.....
The commute takes me along places I have not seen or been to in almost 8 years. In those 8 years the pond I used to swim in, and of which I have my fondest youth memories, has partially been replaced by a highway and a railroad. The railroad is never used, and is part of the Betuwelijn, a railroad -turned- farce, which is hardly in use and lead to the demolition of some of the places I fondly remember.
Going back in history, and tracing back memories is not always wise- for what are memories?
A close friend from Sarajevo sent me a poem by William Maxwell once, called "So long, see you tomorrow". The text of it is:
'What we, or at any rate, I, refer to confidently as a memory - meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion - is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the story teller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.'
I prefer not to say that I lied to myself when I was thinking of that pond, and the golden sunsets I saw there, and illegal fires we lit there, and the bbq's we had, the beers we drank. I still memorize those moments, and they make me smile. But every morning when I pass this pond now, I do think that I lied to myself when I relived those memories though- for it is so different-a-place now. But than again- what a comfortable lie this was, and who cares if it indeed is a lie?
A poisoned thought runs through my brain when I pass the pond by: this country is indeed too small and too full for our own wishes- we want everything, we want to be big, and we want it now. At the expense of the places we loved, and the memories we cherished. And is that worth it? I doubt it. But how do we stop this process? No idea- but for sure not in the way and fashion our right wing politicians say.....
Still, I never had the feeling the country is overcrowded. However, after having been abroad for a while, you start noticing things. I never did before I left, but now I do. Reason for this is that my new job is in Nijmegen, where I grew up and went to high school. Every day I commute from Amsterdam to Nijmegen - that is currently the only traveling I am doing. I do not know yet whether I will be going to the places my new company is doing business with. However, traveling was one of the reasons to take the job. And technically you can consider commuting traveling. But still, it ain't the same.....
The commute takes me along places I have not seen or been to in almost 8 years. In those 8 years the pond I used to swim in, and of which I have my fondest youth memories, has partially been replaced by a highway and a railroad. The railroad is never used, and is part of the Betuwelijn, a railroad -turned- farce, which is hardly in use and lead to the demolition of some of the places I fondly remember.
Going back in history, and tracing back memories is not always wise- for what are memories?
A close friend from Sarajevo sent me a poem by William Maxwell once, called "So long, see you tomorrow". The text of it is:
'What we, or at any rate, I, refer to confidently as a memory - meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion - is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the story teller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.'
I prefer not to say that I lied to myself when I was thinking of that pond, and the golden sunsets I saw there, and illegal fires we lit there, and the bbq's we had, the beers we drank. I still memorize those moments, and they make me smile. But every morning when I pass this pond now, I do think that I lied to myself when I relived those memories though- for it is so different-a-place now. But than again- what a comfortable lie this was, and who cares if it indeed is a lie?
A poisoned thought runs through my brain when I pass the pond by: this country is indeed too small and too full for our own wishes- we want everything, we want to be big, and we want it now. At the expense of the places we loved, and the memories we cherished. And is that worth it? I doubt it. But how do we stop this process? No idea- but for sure not in the way and fashion our right wing politicians say.....
posted by David Hein at 5:55 PM
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