I read Marcel
Proust's REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST way before I was old enough to understand
and appreciate the importance of things past and way before I was old enough to
care to remember things past. I read
the book in college and what stayed with me of that book is the concept that
the mere taste of a cookie can invoke
vivid, living memories of a life, and that the mere taste of a cookie can bring someone's life full circle.
It's taken decades
of years of living life for me to be able to realize something I could never
have known in college: That it's not the taste, sound, sight, smell, or
touch that is in itself so potent, but it's the memories surrounding
the sense that are so potent. So real. So necessary. So much a part of who we've been and who we
are.
I've found that
many writers overlook or forget about the senses when creating their
characters. What are the senses of a child living their childhood? What is the smell of a
child’s bedroom, a parent's particular shirt, a favorite stuffed animal? What
is the sound of the foghorn over the surf, the distant train whistle heard
every day at Noon, the traffic outside the window? What does it feel like to
touch the climbing tree in the corner of a field, grandma’s nubbly chenille
bedspread, a sister’s hair?
And what is the
taste of the fudgesicle Dad buys you from the gas station on the fishing dock
in Menemsha, Martha’s Vineyard, when you are five?
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| Texaco Station, Menemsha, Martha's Vineyard |
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| Menemsha harbor & docks |
Last week I experienced
a remembrance of things past eating that very fudgesicle. The taste was the very
same as when I ate them on the Menemsha dock at five-years-old—delicious,
sweet, cold! But what happened when I
bit into that fudgesicle is that my dad came back. Bright black-brown eyes in
his handsome suntanned actor’s face; blue-nearly-white worn-soft denim shirt
smelling of salted sweat, sun, and Camels; his deep laughter at the joy of sneaking an
ice cream before dinner (“Don’t tell Mom!”); the pungent smell-medley of the
sour gas station, the sharp fish on the docks, day-worn sun lotion, and the
sweet, crisp chocolate ice cream from the deep-freeze. And I was right there. Back there.
With my dad and my ice cream. With my dad before there was unhappiness, illness, and anger. Just my dad and my ice cream. Back there.
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| Emma and her fudgesicle, photo by Deb Dunn |
We all
experience times in our lives when we need
to be back there. Back in a taste, in a smell, in a sound, in a touch, in a
sight. As storytellers and writers, we
need to allow ourselves to tap into our own back theres to understand what the back
theres are going to be for our characters. By doing so, such a richness of life will be added
to our stories, and to ourselves.
