EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED

Apologies to Jonathan Saffran Foer. For 5 days now I have resided in Victoria - truth be told there is little difference between it and NSW. Well, unless you are talking about football.

I got to see my new little Nephew for 2 days, and more than anything else I miss being able to see him. Prior to leaving I went through and visited some places that I used to hang around in, but hadn't been in for a while. Memories came flooding back. Similarly I spent a while in my grandparents home, knowing full well it would soon be sold, and it made me sad. Not because it was the loss of a physical house, but because of the way the house triggered memories of my grandparents. It's the same for songs or movies - at one time or another we have had a song or movie become a favourite because of the connection between the music/movie and someone special - which will then cause us to fell hurt when that relationship ends.

In Everything is Illuminated (watch the film first, then read the book) a man goes to look for the village in Ukraine that his Jewish grandfather had escaped from and to look for the woman who had helped save him. After much searching he finds a woman who indicates that he has found the village - inside her rural, isolated house are the physical possessions of the Jewish families that the Nazis had destroyed. The village and it's people were still alive so long as their possesions were there and she remembered the people. I am worried now that the selling of their house will result in some of my memories of them fade as I don't have the house there anymore to remind me.