During April Fandango has invited us to revisit some of his earlier Provocative Question posts. I don’t remember if I joined in with this one originally which is ironic as it is about memory.

“How do you know which of your memories are genuine and which have been altered over time or even made up?”

Even though our long term memory is usually better than our short term one we don’t recall things the same way. Naomi sometimes mentions incidents from our childhood that I have no memory of whatsoever while I remember other things that she can’t recall. Generally if we both remember an event we remember it the same way even if the details are a bit different.

Our mother used to tell us very detailed stories about her younger days and seemed to have great recall but when she’d get together with her sisters they would argue about when and how things happened.

I guess that the only way to be sure that memories are genuine is if another person has the same memory or that there is evidence that the event happened the way you remember it.

My childhood memories, the ones I’m sure about, tend to be just snippets. Standing on a bridge looking down at railway lines. I queried this one because I was not tall enough to see over the railings as a young child. Mum told me that when I was about two my grandfather used to hold me up so I could see them. I don’t remember my grandfather doing this. I do remember the railway lines and trains.

I remember bits of our journey to Australia from England. When I remember how something looked or felt I think it is more likely to be a true memory