Snapshot

It is not that I have holes in my recollection. It is that there are far more holes than there are memories.  I have snapshot memories that are intense, but they are not linked by a narrative. I have always assumed that it is the same for everybody. Does anybody have a memory that you can open like a book and read the story of their life? 

My therapist asked me to tell her about two memories I have from childhood. This was all I could manage:

1: I am standing in a corn field. I am with my father, but he is in another row picking corn.  I can't say how old I was, but the maize is much taller than me so I must be quite young. 3? 4? 5? Probably not older than 6. The sun is blazing. Perhaps it was that hot hot summer of 1976. I can't say. A bee lands on my arm. I can hear its buzz and feel its legs crawling on my arm. I stand perfectly still and silent and watch intently as it lowers its thorax and slides the short black needle into my arm. I feel like I'm watching myself from a distance, from above, but I experience a sharp pain as it deposits its venom. I keep watching it until it detaches and flies away. I don't make a sound. Tears well up in my eyes and I wipe them on my t shirt. After that, nothing. It is a memory that sometimes returns to me, especially when I feel the sun on my skin, or smell a maize field, but I had never discussed it with anyone before. 

2: I am at a birthday party. There is an entertainer and we are all sat on plastic chairs set out in rows. I can't remember what kind of act. I am in the back row, sitting next to my older brother. Perhaps I can't see, as the party is of one of my brother's classmates, so everyone is much taller than me. I need a wee. The entertainer goes on. I don't say anything. I do a wee in my shorts. It forms a small meandering river that makes its way towards the front of the room. I feel a spreading warmth in my shorts. My cheeks are hot and wet. My eyes sting. 

This one I have spoken about, but changed it into a funny story to amuse my friends. The doing of the week becomes a deliberate, defiant, act. I wonder why that was.