Memories

My aunt Tiny is my mother’s sister, and my mother has dementia, so we’ve been spending some of our walking time talking about memory, and how it works. Watching someone gradually lose their memories is heartbreaking, but also really interesting to see what sticks and what doesn’t. So I’ve been pondering the nature of memory as I go over the same ground with Tiny that Evan and I did almost exactly three years ago.

What I’ve been finding is that I have lots of memories of last time, but they are completely out of order. Today for example, in the first village we came to, I suddenly had a vivid memory of the bar we were coming to, where last time we had a lovely chat with Skye, our daughter over an orange juice.

And the hotel we were staying at tonight is the same one as three years ago, where we found out the Queen had died while having a lovely meal with a Californian couple we had been meeting every few days. But I couldn’t have told you that those two memories were on the same day, just that they were part of the lovely experience that is the Camino.

Sadly, the middle of the day was not so memorable, mostly consisting of a walk beside a highway into what felt like a gale force wind with occasional drops of rain. We made it through but it wasn’t the most picturesque stage we’ve ever had.