Somewhere, in the first chapter of The Art of Memory Frances A. Yates mentions through her own notions, or through a paraphrase, or a quote, that childhood memories are easily accessible to personal recollection and introspections. Finding this quote word for word is irrelevant to the aims of this blog—I just wanted to write about my first memory.
So is this blog in essence an essay about life and the tribulations of adolescence— no, its “mnemonic persona” of the things I hold dear, and it is more fictitious than anything; essay’s tend to do this—blur the line between fiction and reality. Which presents a new question (which perhaps I will expound upon in a latter blog)—what is a real memory if images have to be embellished for the mind to remember. For the readers sake this thought will stop here…

The Day the Tree fell
Summer rain clouds gather quit frequently in Georgia. To the best of my knowledge—for I remember returning to visit every few summers, and watching black-grey clouds curl, and gather in fantastic motions, waltzing back forth like the flight of the fireflies we use to catch in mason jars, weeping as only children weep when their luminosity dimed, and all we had were the relics of legends that shone so bright in the falling night, and the terrifying rain. This was some years after the day the tree fell, and it was certainly a long time before the smell of firecrackers and trimmed summer grass permanently entered my consciousness. My first house I lived in was on the outskirts of Atlanta. It was steeped in the woods—that were being tarnished for the sake suburban progress—where all the houses look the same, and the franchises and strip malls irritate the long forgotten tune of folklore, and the old Indian spirits that cry at night in a desperate chant for the return of their land. Perhaps this was why my parents fled, and became ex-pats—they were disillusioned as any sane person should have been; that is why piecing together this memory is quite difficult. But here—(my father is reading a newspaper mumbling and occasionally glancing at my mother, “It has been raining for a whole goddamn month” my father said adding ambiance to the breakfast table, before gulping down a large draw of black coffee, “I just don’t understand” he said after quenching his thirst for grain and caffeine, “the one day it’s dry enough to go mountain biking I have fucking work”. My mother scolded him for such an inappropriate outburst, “Don, watch your mouth, Alex can hear you in the next room.” While they had a trivial argument in the kitchen, I sat quite in the living room that was made of wooden walls that merged into a green tacky carpet that stretched throughout most of the house. I was not alone at the moment; my friend Shannon a golden retriever let me rest my head upon her curly mane, while we both watched MR Rogers from a blinking blue television set. I was disinterested by the program at the moment…I lifted my head from Shannon, and sat up to gaze out the window onto a street of swirling spirals of steam that rose from the tarmac—and the impeding darkness in the sky that was for told by the weatherman—would not come today. I sat back down on the carpet with Shannon.
(Patting her on the head I laughed at her because she had a white face from the natural cycle)—my mother told me would happen to all of us. Shannon was like a mythic figure to me back then when I was so young—I remember playing with her in the yard, running in circles for hours until we both got tired, and I feel to the ground looking above at the beautiful golden dog that burst and glistened in the Georgia sunshine panting, and grinning above me when I was but four years old, and the only notions I had about importance: was a dog was brave enough, heroic enough, and important enough—and me and Shannon were the only things that mattered in the world of the back yard, and garden surrounded by think brown trees.
When it happened, it happened with a force that still rattles me too this day). Clouds gathered formed struck the tree Shannon jumped yelped my mommy swooped me up from the carpet dashing from the kitchen my father dropped his coffer cup on the floor staring out the window and the tree felled through the roof... later strong men came in a big red fire truck and told me you must have been a brave boy and Shannon licked one and I cried because my room was broken but my parents said I was very lucky.