In those days, life was very different to what it is now. Now we all tend to see the world through a screen and forget the changing landscapes around us. When I was a child, everything was new and exciting, and so I captured everything, opening my eyelids and closing them as if they were shutters on a camera.
In the distance of my memory there is a place surrounded by light. Tall blades of grass blowing lightly in the summer breeze. The clean pure smell of the river not too far away in the distance. The soft clouds framing the sun without smothering it completely. The sound of insects buzzing their way from wildflower to wildflower. These fragments are implanted in my brain. Sometimes I see them when I find myself longing to relive the past – not because the present is dreary – but because revisiting memories is like visiting old friends.
In these short bursts of memory I imagine myself running towards the river. The river is large, calm, freezing cold, and tranquil with very few visible currents or waves. On the other side, there are mountains with tiny houses scattered here and there. I wondered sometimes if the people living on the other side of the mountain could see me. I would wave with my arms madly above my head to capture their attention. Nothing. No signs of life.
Once, in early spring, I wrote a message and placed it inside a water bottle and sent it out into the river. I threw it as far as my short arms could muster. The water bottle departed and I saw it bobble and float away until it was out of sight. To my dismay, in a few days, the water bottle would be sent back to the beach, completely untouched. I wondered if the people on the other side of the mountain had sent it back to me.
Memories are like that. Even though you think that you have sent them away, they nearly always return sooner or later bobbing up and down on the surface of consciousness. Even the most distant memories that seem to have faded with the years, will nearly always return to me in bursts of color.
-Alice
Reveries in Wonderland 