Friday 26 April 2013

Blue skies, flowers and remembering

Magnolia blossom against a blue, blue sky
Delicate fritillary heads with grape hyacinth
How well can you remember your childhood? I am stretching my brain at the moment to write down as much as I can remember of my first 7 years. I've typed an A4 sheet but that's all I can manage. Could you write more? 

 I used to think that as we get older the memory banks open up for us to be able to remember more. Now I'm not confident that necessarily happens. And so much of 'memory' seems to be about things we've been told or photos we've seen. What proportion of what we 'remember' is things we actually remember experiencing for ourselves?

Now I'm going to write about 7 to 10 years old and I remember more about that period of my life because when I was 7 my family moved abroad to a very different way of life. And even now I remember most of the Arabic words (and songs!) I learnt then. Are other languages stored in the same part of the brain as memories? Do you know?


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