Meme of Tiny Memories

[Simon Halliday]

Are tiny memories, replicated to the  hundred thousand, nostalgia-memes that run through our society?

Some stop at national borders: that first meal in the Chick-fil-A booth or, much later, the queer snog in the same booth as protest.

Some cross continents: teen girls rapturously howling Like A Virgin to the bemusement of frail grannies with walking sticks in Brooklyn and Rome.

Some are so tiny and  subtle:  only awakened to be re-lived instantly, tactility and emotion, as with  Judy's  viciously hard gingersnaps.

But for a memory to become a meme, must it have its own life beyond the individual?

Does the feeling of Judy's Christmas wait on us, ready to seize its own moment, does Mike's revulsion of a publisher's racism bide its own time too, ready as a meme for our better selves ?

[Angela]

Beautifully structured, reflective, and holistic.

Maybe How to Make Love to a Man will be republished and become a bestseller.

[Teresa]

You bring up a great point.  Just today, I opened and played a new Mindy Smith cd.  I haven't bought one of her cd's since I was about eight months pregnant with my now seven year old.  I remember how rough that pregnancy was, crying my head off one afternoon after dropping my then seventeen year old off at school.  Now seventeen year old is twenty-four, seven months pregnant and crying today over a hair dye job that went bad (though really not).  And Mindy Smith is back, her wee melancholy voice, delivering the soundtrack for pregnant meltdowns. 

[Judy Thompson]

Tiny memories loom large, often, in the minds of the rememberers.  Bringing them out in the open the way we've done here forces meme  as people remember their own roller skates, Christmases, special sounds and scents and rituals that they had long forgotten.   It's like  heads nodding in recognition, isn't it.

In writing those six for myself I realized finally that those two years in that city were the freest, happiest years of my childhood.   And that says a lot, about something much larger.

 

That too explains the nostalgia trips people experience when they find an oldies but goodies station, or share videos online with friends...all the reactions are personal and usually private,  but the song or movie or video touches everyone.

[Mike Handley]

Clever, eloquent and not so tiny after all.