I heard a new term today: memory restoration. It caught my attention so I wrote it down. We were speaking about creating an outdoor space and when thinking about the elements to include, the term memory restoration came up.
When I was younger, I visited Colorado during different seasons. Today, when I smell the cold in the air, it reminds me of mountains; when I hear the wind in the Cottonwoods, it reminds me of aspens; when I feel the cold wind pushing against my back, I remember the flinthills. What will trigger my memories? I don’t remember taking in deep lungfulls of high, mountain air. I don’t remember closing my eyes to listen to the aspen leaves. I don’t even remember standing with my back against the wind on the treeless flinthills. Yet these memories are viceral.
How do we determine what an individual remembers? Where did they come from; what did they do? Of course we may never be able to ascertain the answers to these questions. But, no matter what we do, we must realize the memories that DO return, will have meaning, and they should be honored because somewhere, someone is remembering a small boy on the Kansas prairie with his back to the wind.
