A Careening Roller Coaster Through My Head, My Memory, and Kitchens I Have Known

[catvalente]

The mind is a strange thing. I cannot even say if it's the mind of a writer that I mean, or the mind of a human. I have always had the mind I have; it is impossible to say whether my habits conform to those of any group--writers, women, those of an age neither Generation X nor Millennial, Americans, artists, and so on--or whether it is just the

Comments

[bigherman]

Have you heard of aphantasia before? It seems like you basically have the opposite.

[ravens_shadow]

In psychology, there is the concept of a schema, basically what we consider the 'prototype' of a thing or place. So when you think of a kitchen and this comes to mind, it suggests this is your schema for kitchen. All other kitchens get compared to it. (I have one, too, different from yours of course, similar to the one I have now combined with the one I had when I was in elementary school.) It always seems to be kitchens, though. There's something about that space...

This also reminds me of a memory technique, where someone ties new information they have to remember to a place they know very well. The further into the place they imagine going, the more in-depth the knowledge. Each item they pass is tied to one of new things they have to recall.

[iterum]

Perhaps your soul is tapping right into the INTELLIGIBLE REALM OF THE FORMS.

Or maybe memory is just f***ing weird.

There's an early "Judge John Hodgman" episode involving a mother and daughter's dispute about the existence of a gray house in the neighborhood where the daughter grew up. But eventually it became a handy way to short-circuit any disagreements about memories or basic facts: one woman's perception was simply true in the Gray House Universe, so there was no point arguing about it.

Nice to see long-form Cat on LJ again.

[ext_3882909]

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing the inside of the music-box.

[kiarrith]

thank you for writing and posting this :)