Fri 23 May 2008
It’s a common ice-breaker question: what’s your earliest memory?
I was thinking about this today, and I realized that I don’t have one. The question stymies me. I mean, I have tons of memories going way back to early childhood, but I can’t even come close to pinpointing one as the earliest. I can’t even narrow them down to the ten earliest.
I have all these memories of nursery school, etc. I remember tons of events that would be impossible for me to put in chronological order. I think my earliest would have been from when I was three or so. But I have so many memories from that time, I can’t say which came first.
Am I being too literal? When most people get asked, “What’s your earliest memory?” do they just interpret that as, “Tell me a story from your early childhood”?
Or do most people actually have a memory that they know (or feel) came before all their other memories?
Posted by grumblebeeOkay, let's hear it.
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Two years old, at Wolftrap, hearing Pete Singer sing “It’s a Small World.” All I remember is the one line of singing; my mom filled in the details. It’s a clear snippet of a memory, set apart from any other early childhood memory.
I was two when we went to visit family and I remember riding their horse with my cousin sitting behind me. My mom is astonished that I remember.
I was two years old and sitting on the kitchen floor. I remember the speckled pattern of the linoleum. The phone rang, my mom answered it and I remember watching her talk and her getting very upset. This is probably why the day made an impression on me, as my mom is usually very calm and easygoing. I remember her carrying me upstairs to my room.
Later, in figuring out that this was my earliest memory, I asked her if she remembered that day at all and indeed she did. It was November 22, 1963 and my dad had called her to tell her about JFK being assassinated.
I remember my younger brother being born. I was 2 years and 3 months old.
When I was three, I snuck into my great grandma’s bedroom, and ate a tonne of tasty Children’s Aspirin. I don’t remember that part, but remember throwing up on the rug as I played with my toy truck, and then being at the hospital getting my stomache pumped.
I have one or two defined early memories, just momentary fragments of sense detail: 1) seeing my father’s shoes and pants legs, up to about the knees, approach me as he walked up the sidewalk toward our front door; 2) sitting on the living room floor, looking toward the stairs as my mother or father called up to my older sisters to hurry because we were all going out somewhere.
These had to have occurred when I was no older than just-turned-three and probably many months earlier. I sometimes think I can remember standing in my crib during one afternoon naptime when I was big enough to climb out of it (around 2?) — just before I got to have a big-girl bed. But that’s very hazy, so I may be semi-inventing it based on something someone told me.
I think I’m missing a fair amount of early childhood memory that other people have. There were some extremely discombobulating family events right around my third birthday, and not only do I not remember them but I don’t seem to remember anything at all from then up to around age 4. Lots of my friends have many vivid memories of being three.
Sitting on the black vinyl bench seat of my dad’s 1967 Dodge watching sunlight flicker through the branches of the magnolia tree beside the driveway and shadows twine patterns across the smeared windshield– brilliant light then mottled blackness as the heavy leaves swayed. It was hot and the thick summer air smelled like honeysuckle and fresh-mown grass. The seat belt clasp burned my hand.
I have a pretty poor memory of my early life. My oldest memory is kindergarten recess, sitting at the edge of the woodchips when it was time to go in. We’d all call out “Mrs. George’s class!” in unison to get the attention of the kids still on the playground.
Besides that, I don’t think I have any definite memories before fifth grade.
My memory doesn’t really kick into gear until I was four or five (and even then it’s rather scattered and incidental stuff, and keeps fading over time), but I’ve got a hazy visual memory of a rocking horse that according to my mom’s timeline would have to have dated back to my first 18-24 months or so.
Whether I actually remember that or whether it’s some sort of primed pseudo-recollection I will never know, but it really struck me when I first “remembered” it.
Feeding ducks with my father in morning fog, burning my hand on the radiator, or eating peanuts out of the shell from a basket on the neighbor’s coffee table, not too sure which came first. All were in a neighborhood we left when I was 2.
There is a branch of psychology, Individual Psychology, that claims that a person’s earliest memory can yeild clues for understanding a patients’ style of life. These memories are not supposed to be do to cause and effect. If these memories are true or not that is not the case, but rather the construction of this memory. By studying the construct of this memory you can see how a persons life is in relation to their ficitional final goal. The fictional final goal is a goal that each person makes for his or her own self to accomplish in order to satisfy the need for social function or success.
So grumblebee I know this isnt exactly what you wanted to hear, but keep that in mind when people ask you to tell them your earliest memory. It may just be a representation of your current life.
Just spitting out some psychobabble-
Hojo
A faint glimpse of the townhouses we lived in, Alexandria, VA. Would have been…3? I have a lot of memories from the start of kindergarten onwards, but not a lot before that, only fairly scattered glimpses, if that.
I have two, I think. I don’t know which is earlier.
First day of pree-school. At the Convent. Being alone in the big stone hallway with my big, new ghostbusters backpack.
Christmas in the house by the sea. A huge green tree in a white room, my long panjamas, the big new expensive TV and tapes! movies! with a VCR! And being photographed for the first time I remember being aware of cameras, and the extreame luxury of having movies you OWN!
I distinctly remember the sweet syrupy taste of the polio vaccine from when I was, what, maybe 18 months old?
And, older, but still pre-kindergarten days, getting a shot that someone messed up, and the blood everywhere, all down my arm, feeling weak and the taste of copper in my mouth and my Mom freaking out and buying me a Slurpee, when usually that was a special treat. They had banana-flavored Slurpees that day.
My very earliest memories probably took place in between the middle of 1998 to late 1998, when I was around 18 months old. My very earliest memory was when I was sitting with my mum in church and I saw a plane flying outside the stained glass windows on the ceiling. It flying close to the ground and I felt alarmed by the sound. Another memory I remember was when I was sitting in a baby booster seat with my two older sisters next to me. It was in a Toyota car and it was raining heavily, and I was watching the wind screen wipers go up and down very fast. Although for many people 1998 was just a normal year and for them it wasn’t that long ago, it was a very long time ago for me and the memories are very blurry in my mind.
I have many memories in 1999 when I was around two years old and my mum when to the mall a lot. I remember that particular mall and whenever I go to it now I have many happy vibes from the memories. My brothers used to play the Nintendo 64 electronic game console. I remember my favourite game to watch my brother play was “Banjo-Kazooie” and many games involving the video game character Mario. I used to have a labrador dog called Nell who I used to play with when my siblings were at school. I taught myself how to use to toilet and wash my hands after I was done. All this happened when I was turning three. I moved into a new house when I was four, I started school the year after (but very strangely I don’t remember my first day at school, instead the second day at school), and I have many clear memories of when I was six and over.