Memory

A Brazilian, a library and a Leonard Cohen song...memory and storytelling

I’m writing this from the British Library, a place that I used to come to most weeks in the last few years that I lived in London. I was studying for a PhD that I wouldn’t finish, I was dreaming of a life in Mexico.

As I sit here once again, I am overtaken with memories.

I remember the deep, delightful fizz of days spent inside the reading rooms, surrounded by piles of books, a pencil in hand (pens not allowed), the possibility of so much knowledge, of discovering more about the world, this silent cave within the chaos of the capital.

It’s almost noon and I catch the smell of the café in the air, deep cabbagey tones. I am reminded of the canteen-like space, always slightly at odds with the prestigious London landmark, all trays and ladles, dinner lady feels.

I remember, then, the Brazilian. Our meetings for lunch there, human connection after being lost in words, ideas, philosophy and thought. We would share stories, him of his studies, mostly fascinating, me of other things, life beyond the ivory tower. I found solace in him, someone different within the swathes of people in academia I found harder to relate to.

My memories move beyond the walls of the library. I am with him at a conference.  There are a few of us, I think we are outside of London. He declares suddenly in front of everyone that Leonard Cohen’s words, her hair upon the pillow, like a sleepy golden storm reminds him of me. Heat rises in my cheeks, at once embarrassed and delighted at the obvious reference to him seeing me sleep. No one knew we were more than just PhD students and friends. Until then.

My memory moves again. Now we are at Charing Cross station. Our lips stained with red wine. I invite him again to escape with me to Mexico. He’s non-committal. I end things. He tells me I look like an angel. I am angry. All romance, no substance. I leave soon after for my new life in Mexico. He will email me many years later out of the blue… I still think you are an angel…his only words. It would take me a long moment to re-find the memory.  

Back in the library this warm August day, the memories flood through. Visceral. The whiff of a book that hasn’t been opened for years, pencil shavings. The soft scratch of led upon paper, the joy of the perfectly sharpened pencil. I remember the hum of people as I would step outside of the reading rooms, the buzz of life beyond as if I had been living on silent pause and had once again pressed play. Outside the library, busses flowing past, busy lives. I would quickly fall into step, marching to the tube or the bus stop, work my way home, pondering the books I had read or checking my phone for messages from the Brazilian, or before him the Osteopath whose name (which happened to also be a common word) I found in book after book after we broke up. A tear drop or two of mine taint the inside of at least one of books in the Humanities Reading Room of London’s most important library.

Memory. It moves in and out of spaces. It moves through the senses, climbs down endless rabbit holes, takes you far beyond the thing that initially evoked it, moves you out of time. It’s choppy, non-linear, dragging out the important pieces from the dross of the everyday.

It can leave you feeling elated, bereft, nostalgic, amused.

These memories make me think about memory in storytelling. How we allow our character’s memories to play out can offer so much to our stories. Using it as a tool it can give a richness to our characters, a fullness, tell us something new.

What smell could spark your character’s memory? Where might it take them? What instances might it evoke, where could it lead them. Can you allow your characters to fall into memory and come back, your reader’s experience all the richer for it?

Give it a try. Pick a smell (smells can transport us in seconds) and write a scene with your character (or you if you are writing memoir) being transported by it. I wonder where it will take them and what it might reveal?

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