Each of these are going to be prefaced by some manner of contextual information or a view on perspective today, looking back at the moment being rendered to writing.
In this case, the literal ‘first memory’ I find in the mental attic. I suppose in a way, this will be both my biography and my memoir. Or just a transient phase, left to dry and drift away on digital winds. Time will tell.
I sat in the large, steel, farm kitchen sink with the sun directly in my eyes. Through the window on my left, the gentle, swaying giant oak played shadow games with me. I loved the interaction of light and tree and color and warmth. So much warmth.
The water was invisible wet; perfect temperature that my infant brain could not have grasped. There were hands with a soft washcloth, and the sensation of terrycloth on skin was still too new to do more than shiver or palsy to, depending on if the fan happened to be blowing on me at that moment. Oscillation as a concept was not present, but that gooseflesh when it happened? Definitely.
And the other was here. Bather, comforter, source of infinite safety and food and features that made my tummy hurt nice and my body feel like it was glowing. This, of course, was my grandmother. For all intents and purposes, my second mother in a long, string of “not-really” that anyone who doesn’t have their mother instantly comprehends.
If that’s not you, I am genuinely happy for you. No one should know this feeling; too many know this feeling; humanity has yet to evolve far enough to care about actively purging this feeling from our species.
But there, in an Atlantan summer, in the kitchen sink of a duplex in Decatur, I did not yet know any of this and so, this memory is like a frieze; it is my central, core memory and, in many ways, the core of what I know as “me”.
That is to say, when I think of myself in the context of identity, all I am or have ever aspired to be is encapsulated in the being rendered into a frieze in my memory. This is who I was before, well, you know…. life.
But here’s the thing I really learned from having this frieze as one of the few, truly immutable cornerstones of my identity: Every, single, human being that has ever been born in the entire history of all human life upon this planet came into this world empty and was filled by their experiences.
Just as every human being ever born in our history has experienced and had to respond and adapt and survive.
But just as every human being ever born shares the general and collective common experiences (i.e., first memory, first this, that, the other, the western experience, or eastern, or tropical… I cannot list the taxonomy!), every human has, literally, a unique inner data lake in which chemistry is happening… organic combustion, to be precise. And the outcomes are a unique flavor and mix that construct what will become “known” consciously… all of which is ever and always coming into “your” awareness well AFTER the literal fact of your brain and body’s actual response. (Science. Go look it up.)
Humanity’s experiences: Common across species, diverse across geolocation and time, unique to each individual’s awareness and interpretation.
Which means that while you may be able to say where you were on 9/11, you can’t also say what the person standing in New York filming events by happenstance is feeling or thinking. You can only try to imagine based on what you know of yourself. The practice of which, depending on how well executed, is called either assumption, empathy, or projection.
Assumption when you don’t really try to imagine a different perspective, you just use your own.
Empathy when you really work to understand a (possibly very) different set of experiences and thus, views.
Projection when you merely react based upon your own experiences and views, but attempt to paste them on another (regardless the rationale for it).
My point in all that deluge is that it’s complicated. And that, apparently, no one really gets it done that well all the time. Then you have folks like me who, no matter how much homeage at an altar of nascent potential is spent, still cannot manage purely empathy at all times.
Actually, I think that’s all of us, but I say it’s me because, well, it is… and I’m better off talking about myself than trying to talk about others. I mean, isn’t that exactly the point?
Post-note: As you can see, my brain goes all over the place and sometimes, I’m the only one who understands the connections between all of the above because they are unique to my experience (rather than common across humanity). I try to constantly hammer on assumptions and projections and make of them empathy. It is a life work that I think only truly exceptional humans manage. I doubt I am exceptional in such fashion.