The Angel of Memory

So often, in fairy tales, a protagonist is given an object or charm that will later prove to be of enormous importance in accomplishing a task or completing a journey.  And just as often, the object is forgotten and remains out of sight until its purpose is revealed.  When it is needed, the object suddenly reemerges as if out of nowhere.  Memories also do this.  They return when they are needed.  This may happen when one is writing a story—a memory appears that may be conveniently incorporated into a plot or may even serve to form the framework for a story that is going nowhere.  But memories can also be useful in other circumstances.  To have one appear at just the right time, even though it has perhaps been buried for decades, is like the mysterious reappearance of the magical object entrusted to the fairy tale character at a time when he or she attached little importance to it.  The event that is being recalled may have seemed inconsequential at the time it actually occurred, but when it reappears as an “involuntary memory” at precisely the proper moment, it can be paradigm-shattering.  In his wonderful book Arrow of God, one of Chinua Achebe’s characters speaks the proverb, “When we see an old woman stop in her dance to point again and again in the same direction we can be sure that somewhere there something happened long ago which touched the roots of her life.”  Considering this proverb carefully, I perceive an ambiguity.  Perhaps it was the event that occurred long ago which touched the roots of her life, but it is also possible that only the memory of it has affected her that way.  Memory can be like a kind of angel that unexpectedly descends on us, sometimes bringing precious gifts: wisdom, insight, joy, reconciliation, comfort, and healing.