Day Twenty: Cellular Memory

Hello. We just had a conversation about cellular memory. This came after running a few kilometres in intolerably humid, 35 degree weather. I came home, sweating and gasping for air, to find a cover version of Vangelis' Chariots of Fire playing the lounge.

Fig 1.1 Me returning from my run earlier this evening.

Cellular memory is mysterious and exciting. It has medical ramifications, particularly when it comes to psychology. It also affects sociology, anthropology, art. For example, when I throw up upon seeing a work by a certain artist, is it because of some horrific abreaction, an ancient memory in an ancestor's life spewing forth on the moment. Or is it merely because the painting is by Jack Vettriano?

Fig 1.2 I'll be there for you chic.

Further, did I do well in university German (or indeed have the desire to study it) because of school Afrikaans or 1000 years of Yiddish-speaking ancestors? Has the existential dread of centuries of oppression (and existential threat) been passed down to me in my cells or am I simply a nervous wreck?

Certainly, the pain, misery (and inbuilt terror) of missing someone may be cellular, but for now it doesn't feel so remote. It seems closer, in the present memory, the distance no further than my own recollections, a scar from childhood perhaps, but for now an open wound of separation that makes less sense by the day.

I'd like to apologise to my children for having left their mother in London for 6 weeks.

Fig 1.3 Will these guys remember all this?