Re-Mind and Re-Member

Some days I’m not sure about memory. I wake up new, light, resolute and as soon as I step outside the house things start reminding me of things. 

‘Reminding’, what a word – remind, re-mind, supposed to mean what? To re-bring-to-mind, to re-put-your-mind-to-it, but also quite possibly to re-mind, to mind afresh, recall some ancient ache, repeat the minding? Why on earth do we do that? No wonder the mind is worn out, with all this funny, hopping-and-skipping, relentless march backwards and forwards. 

I don’t even need to get in the gates to remember (and here’s another extraordinary word: remember, re-member, ‘re-people’ an old setting, like picking up some puppets you dropped on the floor, to put on a show in some faraway place of the mind).  

…today’s stage - a lovely garden revisited and sunshine once more: the arts-and-crafts fair at my friend’s house in Islamabad is back, the huge pot of pilau is back, the fresh coffee, the paintings, the pottery, hand-made soap and Alladin lamps… I don’t buy much because I’m always poor (in that respect reality always matches memory) but I walk around like a kid in a toy shop, then sit around chatting all afternoon.

And then... the next blog happens. Go calling, find me there re-calling, and this way, one day, we can all re-mind and re-member, while the world ticks on and on and on.