"Jessica on train from Berlin 4/81"

A picture from the past because remembering is an associative scavenger hunt.

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“Remembering is an associative scavenger hunt. A reconstruction job that involves the activation of many disparate but connected parts of the brain. We remember memories; we don’t replay them. Retrieval of a memory happens when one part of the memory is stimulated, triggering activation of the linked memory circuit. And if you create and activate the right cues for retrieval, you can remember.”

-Lisa Genova, from the book “Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting”

The first time I lived in Germany, I was six years old.

I said goodbye to my kindergarten teacher, who I called Jane, and boarded an airplane with my parents. My mother had dressed up my new khaki canvas suitcase with embroidered strawberry patches, trying to make the adventure kid-friendly. Our small family went to live for half a year in a furnished walk-up apartment in the university town of Göttingen, in West Germany. The rented flat was in one of several identical, concrete buildings set around a courtyard edged in scruffy hedges with small yellow flowers. I remember women sitting on benches while children climbed around on the jungle gym, or played in the sandbox, and that the whole world smelled like fried onions and potatoes at lunchtime.