The Bandaged Place

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Don’t turn your head. Keep looking 
at the bandaged place. That’s where
the light enters you.
                      And don’t believe for a moment
that you’re healing yourself.
~ Rumi, from Childhood Friends 

::

This week, my bigger picture moment is one
met in silence. Where light and poetry coalesce
and my own language
is paltry in comparison
to the cavernous space within.

::

My earliest memory is, I’m quite sure, from the age of about two or three years old. I’ve read before that most people’s earliest memories are from the age of four or five, three at the earliest, because before that, children aren’t yet able to observe a scene with the requisite level of rationality.

Nevertheless, I’m quite certain–at least to the extent this memory is real and not just some conjuration of my imagination, a fabricated patchwork of feeling and old photographs–that I was not yet four years of age.

In my memory, I was with my mother in the kitchen of our small apartment in Mississippi. My sister might have been there too; I’m not sure, and the more I try to focus in, the more the figures and shapes melt away. I keep a distance, in order to prevent myself from disintegrating the memory with my clumsy-handed mind.

My mother was offering breakfast to me. I recall the choice was bananas or eggs and I chose bananas. For many years, I didn’t like to eat bananas, but when I was a baby, I did.

I recall flashes of rust-brown-red, avocado-green, and creamy white from the colors of the kitchen and the living room. I remember the curl of my mom’s hair, which was long and black in those days. I have a vague awareness of sitting in a child’s seat at a small table, and perhaps the fridge behind me, and I recall dim sunlight streaming from the side, through a window. I remember feeling cared for.

Is this a portent for my life, that the earliest memory is one of food and love and the interconnectedness between the two?

Each Thursday, we come together to celebrate living life with intention by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment. Have you found yourself in such a moment lately? Share it with us! 

Live. Capture. Share. Encourage.
This week we’re linking up at Alita’s!
BE SURE TO CATCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEK
And head there for your daily dose of creativity:
prompts for photos, for words, for inspiration,
and for a life lived mindfully!

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10 thoughts on “The Bandaged Place”

  2. What a wonderful thing that your earliest memory was one of being completely cared for….no want, no longing for more love than was allotted. Imagine a world where that was the norm!

  3. Such a beautiful first memory. I, too, have some fleeting memories from toddlerhood, which people often doubt to be true memories. But I believe that not only are they very real, but that even the simplest and foggiest of those early memories hold a deep and current meaning in the depths of our hearts and souls.

  4. Yes food and love- nourishment. And the colors you remember, too. Nourishment. I had to look up what portent meant. Are you trying to say that there is something to be revealed that you have yet to put forth?

    This was so very deep but I feel the light in it. I wish only the best for you, Jade.

  5. Does this mean I shouldn't make banana pudding?

    My earliest memory is of the day our apartment house burned down. I was three. What I love about it is the difference in concern. I saw it through three year old eyes…very different from what I would think and how I would react now.

  6. What a sweet memory Jade. It's interesting about what you said in a previous post about how Toby always loves to tell stories from his past, but how you don't because you think they're boring. Trust me, they're not. :)

    Thinking of you both in BKK. <3

  7. That's actually quite nice that you can pinpoint that as your earliest memory. My sister was born when I was four and I clearly remember time before her but can't put my finger on what was the earliest. And the development of a foodie starts quite early I gather :)

  8. See, it doesn't have to be a big, grand event that constitutes a memory — just a quick glimpse of time and feeling. I totally believe that we can have these early memories. I cross-my-heart promise that one of my first memories is of being in a crib, surrounded by slats and blankets and feeling so, so sheltered. I had to have been under 3, and closer to 2. I remember my mom telling me things about not needing the crib anymore — I think she was getting ready to dismantle it — but how much I *wanted* the crib to be mine forever.

    So yours is about food and love, and mine is about shelter and love. Maybe it's where the basics and the emotions intersect that we find memory the strongest?

  9. That first quote … it lingers in my mind as I think about your words, your memory and how that still lingers with you today. I find it interesting, too, this first memory of yours and all things present in the memory — the feeling and emotion tied to it. I have the same elements in my first memory. It's interesting.