There’s a way memories often take on that nostalgic sepia wash of an old movie with all the sentimentality of manufactured emotions and barely the substance of the original.
Recently, my memories have taken on the texture of a montage in some low-budget movie. I used to think remembering every mundane event with needless clarity was a curse, but these days, I’d gladly wind the reel to the beginning to enjoy these overly dramatic moments as a detached audience. I can appreciate the past better that way down to the unique mix of my subject’s perfume that can never be recreated because it only exists in my mind. I return to my secondary school and the blackboard that remains vivid in my memory is no longer there. The buildings are different and the cathedral that used to serve as a larger than life witness to every important moment now looks too small. Yet I can still hear echoes of my nervous laughter in those rooms. If I painstakingly peel back the paint, maybe I’ll find myself in those walls.
Perhaps we all become richer in the memory’s counterfeit currency the older we grow. This is such a nice piece.
Funny, how it was the secondary school memories that did the heaviest persuading for this piece. A time that threaded with dread and inconvenience that you would not have described them, living through them, as anything you might one day wish restored to you, and yet there you are, hours into a telephone conversation with your old classmates, turning them over with the tender, incredulous attention of people who have discovered a currency they once thought worthless and are only now beginning to suspect was gold all along. It's a beautiful swindle. Thank you for reading.
Yeah.
There’s a way memories often take on that nostalgic sepia wash of an old movie with all the sentimentality of manufactured emotions and barely the substance of the original.
Recently, my memories have taken on the texture of a montage in some low-budget movie. I used to think remembering every mundane event with needless clarity was a curse, but these days, I’d gladly wind the reel to the beginning to enjoy these overly dramatic moments as a detached audience. I can appreciate the past better that way down to the unique mix of my subject’s perfume that can never be recreated because it only exists in my mind. I return to my secondary school and the blackboard that remains vivid in my memory is no longer there. The buildings are different and the cathedral that used to serve as a larger than life witness to every important moment now looks too small. Yet I can still hear echoes of my nervous laughter in those rooms. If I painstakingly peel back the paint, maybe I’ll find myself in those walls.
Perhaps we all become richer in the memory’s counterfeit currency the older we grow. This is such a nice piece.
Funny, how it was the secondary school memories that did the heaviest persuading for this piece. A time that threaded with dread and inconvenience that you would not have described them, living through them, as anything you might one day wish restored to you, and yet there you are, hours into a telephone conversation with your old classmates, turning them over with the tender, incredulous attention of people who have discovered a currency they once thought worthless and are only now beginning to suspect was gold all along. It's a beautiful swindle. Thank you for reading.
also, I just realised every paragraph of this piece is one sentence each. I find that amazing.
Someone finally noticed.😅
Thank you!
how profound. I'll need to read this yet again.
Did you cry writing this, as I did reading it?
Oh, this is so good.
Thank you, Ọrẹolúwa.
Probably.🥲