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Peace with The Memory
How to Manage Your Memories?
I consider Carlos Zafon one of my favorite writers. Slowly but surely, he takes you by the hand and before you know it, you are immersed in an ocean of stories, small stories, mysteries, and descriptive beauty.
He said in his great book the shadow of the wind “ I’ve always thought that we are what we remember, and the less we remember, the less we are.” Is this always true? I asked him personally this question when he was in Amsterdam in 2017. The answer was an approving smile accompanied by a nod.
Those who come from war-torn countries like me (I come from Syria) have memories that are filled with terror, suffering, war, and blood. Besides all this ugliness, there are the vines of jasmine of Damascus, the wonderful gardens, the friends of childhood, the joy of the first years of life, and the old bookshelves in my room that have been sleeping sadly for years abandoned in a corner without the gentle touches that make every book shine and maybe smile.
How can we navigate safely in the memory? Is there a sort of GPS to climb the summits of gains and avoid the valleys of pain? How can we avoid the muddy roads of agony…
