Seven years ago, just before five o'clock in the morning, I set off on a long bicycle ride south, following the Warsaw-Radom railway line. [A link to a blog post about that journey appears below, This time seven years ago.]
By 7am, I had reached Sułkowice, and I popped into the local supermarket to buy food. I rode on, across the DK50, and found a quiet spot by the side of a farm track in Chynów for a second breakfast. While making myself a baguette sandwich filled with ham, I watched two hares playing in the adjacent field. Below left: 19 July 2014. Below right: 21 July 2021, exactly the same spot (note the cylindrical fence-post topped with concrete, with a steel rod sticking out of it).
I was entirely unaware of it at the time, but three years and four months later, I'd be buying a działka less than 700m from where I sat eating my baguette. The quest to find the exact location took a while; it was only when I found the photo I'd taken (on my 2013-2016 Samsung Galaxy S3) that I realised it lay east of the railway line.
Six years later, the area has changed greatly; the level crossing that until last summer led ulica Miodowa over the Warsaw-Radom line had been closed, all traces removed. The gravel road has been asphalted all the way to Jakubowizna, the railway line comprehensively modernised, with flood protection drainage on both sides. Old orchards have been uprooted, new ones planted and tended to fruition. The hares are still here; two of them popped out across the road, watched me for a while, then scampered back into their field. The spirit of place has changed - exactly the same location, only more prosperous, better managed; standing here, I no longer could relate directly to the qualia I'd experienced at 07:27 on Saturday 19 July 2014.
But I can certainly conjure them up!
Looking at the photograph brings it all back accurately. My memory has been proved correct. The 'I' that existed on 07:27 on that summer's day seven years ago and the 'I' that is writing these words is linked by consciousness and memory, and externally verified. This is a deeply personal memory; no one but me can prove I am experiencing it. Collective memory is different. "Do you remember when we..." "Yes, and we..." In such cases, often the other person adds an element that you yourself might have forgotten. If you don't recall something, but the other person does (or the other way around), is the memory valid? Does a new, collective, memory come into existence?
I would posit that only you can judge; if another person describing an event at which you were present, but of which you have no qualia memory (that is, you have no deep, abiding memory of sensory perceptions at the time), it might not have existed for you. Psychologists might argue that you have been trying to shut off the memory - perhaps in some cases. In most, the experience itself failed to register, failed to trip at the spiritual, consciousness, level.
From the very beginning of this blog, I had set out to create a body of work for myself that I could return to and verify those deepest memories. In the case of my bicycle ride of 19 July 2014 - it worked.
Here's a link to a past post I wrote about the elusive and personal nature of memory.
This time three years ago:
And did Her feet...?
This time five years ago:
40 years ago - Montserrat, holiday that would shape my life
This time six years ago:
Last night's storm
This time seven years ago:
Drifting south with the sun - bicycle hobo
This time nine years ago:
Royal Parks in the rain
This time ten years ago:
Storm clouds over Warsaw, Dolinka under water
This time 11 ago:
Round-up of pics from Dobra
This time 12 years ago:
Conservatism - UK or Polish style?
This time 13 years ago:
Wheat and development
This time 14 years ago:
A previous visit to London
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