Physical memory
I was walking across Vauxhall Bridge the other day, thrilled by the sudden, overdue arrival of summer, when I was struck by the smell of the Thames, coming on so strong in the sunshine. If, unlike me, your nose isn't regularly an inch away from the surface of London's river, you might not be attuned to this smell - it's earthy and a little cool, basically the smell of silt in freshwater. I've been swimming in the river all year but it's been forever since I swam in the sun, so as the smell hit me on that sunny day I was flooded with the memory of last summer in the river - I could practically feel myself kicking off into the cool water, so lovely, so free.
We think we store our memories in our heads, but actually, we keep a surprising amount elsewhere. We find our memories again in places, smells, objects, times of year, and in other people. Years can go by without thinking about something but then boom - a song comes on and suddenly it's all there, flooding back in full colour.
Outside Tate Britain, a patch of pink roses is so fragrant right now that the smell carries across the entire lawn - for the next two weeks we'll be in peak rose season in London. It made me think of the first time I went to see the most spectacular roses in the city, in Queen Mary's Garden in Regent's Park, which was immediately after the long lockdown and I was frazzled and overwhelmed and had no idea how to be a person in the world. But there they were - roses in every colour imaginable and smelling to high heaven, doing their thing. The world had continued to turn, in spite of it all.
We remember things not as they are - we remember them as we are. You can even overwrite a memory, I learned from speaking to two neuroscientists for a feature about memory I wrote a few years ago. One of my favourite pubs in Shoreditch is a place I was once broken up with, but with repeated visits I no longer think of it in those terms. I have jewellery given to me by exes which I still wear, without sentiment. Creating new associations isn't as hard as it may sound, because as I also learned from those neuroscientists, the brain isn't actually all that interested in accuracy - the reason we remember things is so that we can make good predictions about the future. Maybe that's why I have such visceral memories of the buses out of Camberwell, taking forever in traffic to get to the Tube station - presumably this is given pride of place in my brain to to prevent me for ever putting myself in that transport position again. Although sometimes, strong memories are less useful: every time I go through the tiled underpass of Clapham Junction station I'm reminded of the time I had my first panic attack there, but as I didn't know what a panic attack was at the time I simply thought I was going to die. This memory resurfaces every time I pass through that station, but I've not had anxiety in a very long time, and your mood is a big factor in how you experience a memory. This means the recall has turned into a moment where I nod to my previous self, remembering that all things pass.
June is here, and with it comes a faint sense of unsettledness - a restless urge to "make the most of it". The lightest month is here already, so soon! The physical memory of this light, this temperature, this early lushness of the city, now carries with it a sensory memory to the end of two major lockdowns, which came at this time of year. Then, the energy in the city was manic, with immense pressure to "make up for it", which is mostly not actually possible. It took a long time for the city to feel open and friendly again after all that, but I think now, a year later, we may finally be getting there? We are starting to trust that it won't all be taken away from us again, at least not right now. I mean, there's no way to un-know, not entirely.
I'm reassured by the fact that we have some control over how we remember things, though - the human brain is programmed to optimise for the future, to “make the most of it”, if you will. This also means, as the neuroscientists explained to me, that we aren't doomed to remain at the mercy of a bad memory forever, as we can and do constantly reframe things, looking to fit it into the story of our lives in a way that serves us.
But sometimes, places will always belong to the memories they carry with them. For me, one of them is the field I used to walk across every day during lockdown - I've tried to reclaim it, but some things just won't budge. But I kind of like this - the memory of lockdown is though one to carry around, so I'll just leave some of it in that field. Any time I want to access it I can just go back there, where I'll nod to my previous self and remember that all things pass.
Things I've been writing lately.
I started this article as a story about potato farming, and the actions required to keep a harvest going so it could feed you for a whole year. But with edits, this story went from logistics to love story - as much as potato farming is work, it's also about care, diligence and attention. My grandparents brought all that to the potato harvest, and also to all of us. I am in ever-increasing awe of the good fortune of it all.
There's plenty of memes about back pain, but there are no memes about physical therapy bills, because it's really not funny. For Well + Good, I chronicled my efforts to fix my back, which was complicated but kind of successful? The biggest TL;DR of this is that back pain is not "just one of those things", despite what some doctors tell you - you can help yourself.
I'm a British citizen now, but there are things you can only understand if you were born here. One of them is Lemsip, the favourite liquid cold remedy of a nation that sees suffering as a virtue. For WhyNow, I dug into the mystery.
How hot dogs became Norway's national snack - Atlas Obscura
Norway is a country of hot dogs. "Pølse med brød" is ubiquitous everywhere from petrol stations and convenience stores to kids' birthday parties and trips to the woods - and they are universally excellent. But how did this happen? I went deep in this article for Atlas Obscura, and it was delicious.
Things I've been reading lately.
For this month's article recommendations, head over to Reading List, All After the Other edition.