perspective	I have the best memory in my immediate family: so good, in fact, that no one believes the stories I can remember about things that happened when I was young. No one believes, for instance, that on trips to the grocery store when I was four or five, I would separate from my mother, wander around the store, and ask strange ladies, "Have you seen my mommy?" Supposedly, I was too shy back then to have tried such things. But I'm sure I remember doing it. I even remember hiding behind a display of big cans of potato chips as my mom turned out of an aisle without me following close behind. Perhaps it's the clarity of such details which makes my memories seem to be incredible and outlandish stories. We all remember things selectively, and also make links in our minds between events, people, places, objects which seem related because of the kind and intensity of our feelings about them. I do this with my old bench. I always assume that my mother purchased it for me in northern Michigan, in one of the small towns near the place my family used to go every summer since I can remember, and a place with which I associate a wholeness that no longer exists in my family. But, of course, she didn't get the bench there. And it changes it a little for me that she didn't. So I persist in misremembering the origin of the bench. People hang on to things which are remnants of past happenings: ticket stubs, baby teeth, wedding dresses, license plates. But perhaps we also acquire things which contain traces of stories we have yet to make up about them. We can spin fantasies off of such things. Origins aren't necessary for memories.
truth
dream		attic trace