Alexia Golez

Very busy at work, but posting will be back this evening or tomorrow.

In the meantime I was thinking about Damien’s post on wonderings. You know what’s really special about them? The associative sensual moments we have in them. Whoa, there… What I mean to say, is that aroma, that view, that sound we experience while pondering them.

Yes, associative memories are the bread and butter of our cognitive makeup. But isn’t it nice when you re-experience a sense trigger and that leads you back to a wondering moment. For example, when I was only about eight or so, I had a hair-brained idea that cloud cover just hung in the skies. So, that once a year, every year, that fluff of cloud hung over that very same spot of the Earth just like the stars do. I suppose it makes sense to an eight year old girl that watched way too much Trek. The Earth’s yearly spin was much easier to grasp than precipitation. Anyway, on this wondering I sat on the ground and tried to memorise the generous cloud cover on that particular day so that could meet it again like an old friend the following year. I must have sat down and concentrated for a half hour.

I don’t pretend to remember that sky, but whenever I see a similar view – heavy clouds counterpointing a bright sun – I’m that eight year old girl sitting up, looking at the sky. And to further reinforce it, whenever I look out that particular window, I remember that wondering and smile at the assumptions we make about the world, when we’re young and very, very sure.

So, have you associative memories that bring you back to wonderings? Smells, sounds, textures of material about you, views that remind you of a moment of thinking ‘what if’?