This time last year, I was in Paris. It was my last trip abroad. Since then, travel has been limited but thoughts can always roam free. Sometimes, the memories of a special place are found nearer to home. There is no need to visit them because they can be recalled in the mind just as a photograph is held in the hand. Island Hill is a storehouse of memory for me. Each time I think of it, or visit it, I am reminded of Marc Augé when he said " Memories are crafted by oblivion as the outlines of the shore are created by the sea" . He speaks of the connections between memory, oblivion and erosion and it always makes me think of Island Hill and how , over my life time, is has been eroded and seems a little smaller each time I go there. I wonder then as it decreases in size will my memories of it fade or will it always exist as long as I remember it? In years to come, what will be remembered from this year of lock down - who will be remembered and why? Despite the impossibility of perfect recall and the challenges of the past year, I feel lucky to be here to narrate the memories of them.
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