When memory strikes

Why do people remember where they were when they heard of the death of President Kennedy? I have a mental snapshot of my precise surroundings when I heard of the deaths of King George VI, Marilyn Monroe, John Kennedy, John Lennon and Princess Diana. As to when Martin Luther King and Elvis Presley died, I have no idea. The fabric of my past is constructed from selected strands. There’s your past and mine and all the others’ past like a big overlapping mosaic, clashing here, harmonizing there. From this half-glimpsed patchwork, our intellect constructs an idea of the past, as if it were a definite reality—that fugitive notion on which we depend so heavily. The world could be divided between those who believe that reality is solid and straight and unarguable, like a big office building in the middle of town; and those who see it as a swirling half-illusory effect, like the sky. Which side am I on? It’s not easy to be sure in one’s own case.

What things do you remember with snapshot clarity, as if time stood still whilst you took in the scene and stored it for a lifetime? Perhaps the memory-fixative was nothing more substantial than a fleeting thought, as happened to me in Portmeirion.

It was on my third visit to this spectacular resort in North Wales. We went with my younger children aged seven and three. It’s a good place to take kids at that age, for they can run about and almost get lost for there are no cars and the village is enclosed, with a single entrance gateway. I wonder if Portmeirion was the original theme park, long before Disney? It’s more refined aesthetically, recalling not children’s fairy tales and cartoon characters but the architectural perspectives, macro and micro, of the Mediterranean. It echoes with European visual history, from the Classical to the Renaissance, with touches of the eighteenth century too.

The moment I remember so clearly was in the car park before you reach Portmeirion itself. It was nothing but a rustic clearing in the woods, covered in gravel and bordered with wildflowers; all dappled in sunlight filtered through the surrounding trees. From there, you have to continue on foot. We collected the things we’d need for our day’s outing and I stood waiting for the family before locking the car.

At that precise moment came the feeling. I cannot describe it, only the thoughts which it engendered.

What am I doing here? All I have ever wanted is this feeling. I recall the various moments in my life when I felt this way. Why are we coming here to look round this place? Why do I have children? How has all this happened, when all I wanted was a feeling? Why am I weighted with impedimenta, when all I ever wanted was to sniff the air and sip the moment like a wine?

I was remembering Portmeirion from previous visits: not yet able to see it because it stood at the other end of a wooded path. The village was a symbol of life as theatre. Everyone goes there to stroll and look and simply hang out. There are so many places to assemble. Visitors are part of the scenery. Back in the Sixties, it had been the backdrop for a famous TV thriller series, The Prisoner. On my previous visit, there had been a fashion shoot for some glossy magazine.

Do I have to strut on this stage? I haven’t learned my part. I don’t know who I am, but the clock ticks on and I have to act anyhow. Can’t I start again, and be fancy-free, as when I was a student, hanging out in Paris, Tarascon, Marseilles, Florence, Assisi? I was lonely then and aimless, but I didn’t compromise.

And now? I no longer want to start again. I’ve learned how to play my character. The town where I live is my true home; this whole earth too.