A Flash called Clapper

Nabokov in Speak, Memory describes memory as brief intervals of flashes. “In probing my childhood (which is the next best to probing one’s eternity)I see the awakening of consciousness as a series of spaced flashes with the intervals between them gradually diminishing until bright blocks of perception are formed, affording memory a slippery hold.”

One) brilliant and

Two) how did this guy coming to English as a second language become so proficient?

We all come to memory via differing triggers, but usually our earliest memories have a tenuous connection to speech. We have to know the name of something in order to attach the memory. The name can be gibberish, a native tongue, or a perceived name, but it is tied to verbalization, the concept that a thing is a thing.

Outside of us.

I had a flash memory the other day. Perhaps I am reliving my daughter’s childhood as I hold my grandson and try to understand what’s going on in that little head of his. I can bet it’s one of a few things. He wants to eat. He’s wet or poopy. He needs a nap but is fighting it. He is THRILLED when he sees his mommy, though he has no real way to put that word together with the face he recognizes. I only know she is glorious to him.

So I was reminded of a time when Grace asked for a Clapper. Now I have no idea how she came up with this. Perhaps it was while at Grandma’s house and the TV was left on. It was always on. Commercials were a constant, especially those fish-o-matic kind where Wait! There’s more! Call/order today and receive not one, not two, but a gazillion of this thing you don’t really need. It chops, it dices, it will fill up your cupboard. You will recycle, trash it in ten years.

Anyway, she wanted a Clapper—and I got it, literally. She didn’t want to have to climb down out of her bunk bed to turn off the light. Imagine! After reading or writing your latest story being able to clap and summon the darkness.

I can’t recall what happened to it, if it broke or she lost interest, but I do remember her gasping as she unwrapped it and exclaiming, “A Clapper!”