What If?: Memories Unearthed

The piece “Memoria Ex Machina” was built on a set of very unusual ideas. However, it was one in particular which really had me thinking. And, when I say “thinking”, I mean the not blinking for several minutes on end because that would most definitely disrupt my train of thought kind of thinking. The idea was very simple, yet profoundly complex: Perhaps the objects of our memories are better off left in oblivion, never to be unearthed.

According to “Memoria Ex Machina”, when we see an object or relive a moment from way back in our past, we run the risk of being disappointed when they don’t live up to our memories of them.

When I first read this, I got very depressed. Suddenly I felt like my whole childhood was an illusion. However much I hate to admit it, though, I have had a great deal of experience with this phenomenon.

One day, when I was only about six or seven-years-old, I heard a song in music class that made my heart soar. It was called Sammy/ I’m Glad I’m Me. I don’t know what it was about it that made me feel so light and exuberant. Maybe it was the lyrics, which my classmates and I acted out by flapping our wings and hopping around, or maybe it was the infectious melody. Whatever it was, I would be humming that tune for the rest of the day with a smile on my face. Soon, one school year morphed into the next, new friends joined the old friends, a baby sister was born and before I knew it, eight years had passed. And Sammy had been left behind.

Then, one evening last year, for reasons I have yet to explain, that fateful tune suddenly popped into my head. At this point, the Internet had evolved so much that within a minute, I had located the song, whose name I had since forgotten, and eagerly began listening to it.

Immediately, my smile deflated. The lyrics were mediocre at best. The melody seemed inconsistent and manipulated. To say the least, the song before me was a disappointment compared to my old childhood sweetheart. I was just about to “x” out of the YouTube page when the chorus began playing for the first time. With no warning whatsoever, my heart became as light as a feather and started soaring.

Yes, technically, I was disappointed after I unearthed this melody of my youth. What I had hypothesized were the reasons I loved the song were absolutely incorrect. I could honestly think of nothing complimentary to say about Sammy as a musical piece. What was it that made me feel that state of joy and bliss, then? It must have to do with what that song really reminded me of—what I connected it to the first time I heard it all those years ago.

The song was about a father. It was about independence. It was about pretending. It was about friends. Could these ideas have made me feel happy and alive when I listened to it? I also remember shedding all my worries as soon as I walked into my music class every week… feeling clean and pure as can be. Could this somehow be woven into my memory?

I have a feeling it wasn’t just Sammy that was unearthed on that evening last year. Because of unfounded expectations and a closed mind, I demonstrated the “Memoria Ex Machina” reaction: disappointment. But, I also rediscovered a great deal of my childhood and caught a fleeting glimpse of my young, buck-toothed, innocent self in the process. So, could I say I wish that memory had remained in oblivion? Yes, I could. But I would be lying.