A beautiful bookmark from a friend has set me thinking.
It makes me think about emotional memory and how we are affected by it, possibly for a life time because emotions and memories are intricately and inexorably connected. Emotional memory is the memory for events that evoke strong feelings or emotions stored in our long term memory which may or may not fade with time. We are more likely to remember emotionally charged images than neutral ones, particularly if they personally traumatic memories.
Imagine this scenario. Back in the 70s when Boat Quay was still a bustling hub for cargo and warehouses, a young child would visit her father's shipping office everyday after s
chool. Situated just along the waterfront where a hip bistro-pub now stands, his office was like a creche where she spent a good part of the afternoon doodling, playing five-stones or paper dolls. She also loved to sit by the busy river banks listening to the whir and drone of Singapore's busiest waterways brimming with buzz and activity. She relished the sight of her father's Chinese tongkongs and sampans dotting the river with their merchandise for import and export dealings with the rest of the world.
In evening, they would be driven by the family driver back to their Chinatown home. The short journey home was usually a non-event because the little girl would be too engrossed in her paper dolls to pay particular attention to anything else..........until one day when their routine was grossly disrupted on the way home.
Three burly men accosted their car at a small lane along Upper Cross Street and forced the girl's father out. They pushed him against the wall and roughed him up while shouting in jargon only adults understood. It was only years later that she realised her father had been accused of winning over the aggressors' business. He had been a diligent and astute businessman but was often blamed for monopolizing a big slice of the industry's pie.
The little girl might have travelled along that small land a hundred times before but nothing about it struck her until that fateful day. Although she was not physically hurt, the incident has forever altered her feelings about venturing into that Upper Cross Street lane.
At the tender age of six, she would not have understood the implications of emotional memory but she knew that the small lane elicited an unconscious but powerful physiological reaction every time she had to go near it. She would begin to shudder involuntarily and experience an overwhelming sense of fear and helplessness especially at the spot where her father was attacked.
Permanently etched onto her memory, she can recall in vivid detail every expression and nuance uttered by the aggressors, the way her father was pushed around and the fear spreading across his face when he realised what was happening. Now, some decades later she can still recall the patch of fungi growth on the wall where he was left crouching against.
Emotional memory also refers to how an object, event or person can make us feel by triggering an existing memory that has emotional significance. I have a particular fondness for iced-coffee because it signifies my 'coming-of-age'. Due to its high caffeine content, my mother had always forbidden us from drinking coffee. However, she relented somewhat when I was in junior college as I was clocking in eight to nine hours at school and needed the extra boost particularly for afternoon lectures. The first time I bought a packet of iced-coffee from the vending machine, I felt so grown up. Since then, iced-coffee has become my 'comfort beverage' when I am down or in need of a spritz of energy!
So what are our emotional memories? Are they happy ones, 'spritzy' ones or are there past hurts, disappointments and shame locked deep within the recesses of our subconsciousness? The little girl is not me but I have my fair share of strong emotional memories and the harrowing experiences of being trapped by things that happened in the past. Should we leave them to ferment and dredge up all kinds of psychological reactions or should we scrub the decks of our emotional memory and leave them in God's good hands?
I don't think my friend knows the impact a simple bookmark she picked up from church has on my reflections but this is just the way God works.......... through trivial everyday matters. While the bookmark has an aesthetic drawing of Christ's profile, the beauty I could see is not only in its illustration but in a precious prayer it bears:
Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, guide me to go back into my memory as I sleep. I ask you to heal every hurt that has ever been done to me. I ask you to heal every hurt that I have caused to another person. For all the relationships that have been damaged in my whole life that I am not aware of, I ask you to heal those relationships. Lord, if there is anything I need to do or I need to go to a person because they are still suffering from my hand, bring to my awareness that person. I choose to forgive and I ask to be forgiven. Remove whatever bitterness may be in my heart, Lord and fill the empty spaces with your love. Amen.
With faith and confidence, we should have the courage to walk through the small lane again.
It makes me think about emotional memory and how we are affected by it, possibly for a life time because emotions and memories are intricately and inexorably connected. Emotional memory is the memory for events that evoke strong feelings or emotions stored in our long term memory which may or may not fade with time. We are more likely to remember emotionally charged images than neutral ones, particularly if they personally traumatic memories.
Imagine this scenario. Back in the 70s when Boat Quay was still a bustling hub for cargo and warehouses, a young child would visit her father's shipping office everyday after s
chool. Situated just along the waterfront where a hip bistro-pub now stands, his office was like a creche where she spent a good part of the afternoon doodling, playing five-stones or paper dolls. She also loved to sit by the busy river banks listening to the whir and drone of Singapore's busiest waterways brimming with buzz and activity. She relished the sight of her father's Chinese tongkongs and sampans dotting the river with their merchandise for import and export dealings with the rest of the world.In evening, they would be driven by the family driver back to their Chinatown home. The short journey home was usually a non-event because the little girl would be too engrossed in her paper dolls to pay particular attention to anything else..........until one day when their routine was grossly disrupted on the way home.
Three burly men accosted their car at a small lane along Upper Cross Street and forced the girl's father out. They pushed him against the wall and roughed him up while shouting in jargon only adults understood. It was only years later that she realised her father had been accused of winning over the aggressors' business. He had been a diligent and astute businessman but was often blamed for monopolizing a big slice of the industry's pie.
The little girl might have travelled along that small land a hundred times before but nothing about it struck her until that fateful day. Although she was not physically hurt, the incident has forever altered her feelings about venturing into that Upper Cross Street lane.
At the tender age of six, she would not have understood the implications of emotional memory but she knew that the small lane elicited an unconscious but powerful physiological reaction every time she had to go near it. She would begin to shudder involuntarily and experience an overwhelming sense of fear and helplessness especially at the spot where her father was attacked.
Permanently etched onto her memory, she can recall in vivid detail every expression and nuance uttered by the aggressors, the way her father was pushed around and the fear spreading across his face when he realised what was happening. Now, some decades later she can still recall the patch of fungi growth on the wall where he was left crouching against.
Emotional memory also refers to how an object, event or person can make us feel by triggering an existing memory that has emotional significance. I have a particular fondness for iced-coffee because it signifies my 'coming-of-age'. Due to its high caffeine content, my mother had always forbidden us from drinking coffee. However, she relented somewhat when I was in junior college as I was clocking in eight to nine hours at school and needed the extra boost particularly for afternoon lectures. The first time I bought a packet of iced-coffee from the vending machine, I felt so grown up. Since then, iced-coffee has become my 'comfort beverage' when I am down or in need of a spritz of energy!
So what are our emotional memories? Are they happy ones, 'spritzy' ones or are there past hurts, disappointments and shame locked deep within the recesses of our subconsciousness? The little girl is not me but I have my fair share of strong emotional memories and the harrowing experiences of being trapped by things that happened in the past. Should we leave them to ferment and dredge up all kinds of psychological reactions or should we scrub the decks of our emotional memory and leave them in God's good hands?
I don't think my friend knows the impact a simple bookmark she picked up from church has on my reflections but this is just the way God works.......... through trivial everyday matters. While the bookmark has an aesthetic drawing of Christ's profile, the beauty I could see is not only in its illustration but in a precious prayer it bears:
Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, guide me to go back into my memory as I sleep. I ask you to heal every hurt that has ever been done to me. I ask you to heal every hurt that I have caused to another person. For all the relationships that have been damaged in my whole life that I am not aware of, I ask you to heal those relationships. Lord, if there is anything I need to do or I need to go to a person because they are still suffering from my hand, bring to my awareness that person. I choose to forgive and I ask to be forgiven. Remove whatever bitterness may be in my heart, Lord and fill the empty spaces with your love. Amen.
With faith and confidence, we should have the courage to walk through the small lane again.
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2 comments:
Your description was so rich, I felt like I was right there on Boat Quay with you many years ago -- even though you say it wasn't you!
OK, caffein, being grown up, cuppa mocha... I'm beginning to connect the dots. :-)
Hi Pat,
Oh yes, I used to hang around grandad's Boat Quay office in those days too (ya, I'd told you about it....that's how the river scene is very familiar to me!) and knew the girl whose dad's company was 2 blocks down the road.
She lives in Boston now but the last time we caught up (5 years ago), she shared that she still shudders at the memory of the incident. Young kids shouldn't have to witness the brutality of the adult world, really.
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