The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Four — What Remains Within Us
The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
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Chapter Four — What Remains Within Us
I continued walking along the river.
The path wound between tall trees, and the sun penetrated through their branches and drew patches of light on the ground. Now and then a butterfly passed beside me, or the chirp of a bird I could not see was heard.
My thoughts were still given to the conversation with the Entity of Time.
I tried to recall everything she had told me, especially the things that stirred new questions in me. I wanted to keep them within me, to return to them later, when I had leisure to think.
And then a strange thought rose in me.
How can I know I will remember this conversation in another hundred years?
And if I live a thousand years, will I remember the day I arrived on the island? The moment I met the bird in the orchard? My home, the voices of the people I love?
I tried to recall my mother's voice.
It rose in me at once, so familiar that for a moment I almost heard her calling me.
I closed my eyes.
I could remember her face, the movements of her hands, the way she would look at me when I told her something important.
But when I strained to recall a specific conversation we held years ago, I discovered I did not remember the words.
I remembered where we sat. I remembered the light that came in from the window. I even remembered the feeling I had on that day.
But not the things that were said.
I opened my eyes.
I felt sadness.
Not because the memory pained me, but because I understood that part of it was already lost.
After all, we had countless conversations. How many of them can I truly reconstruct?
I kept walking, and suddenly more memories rose in me.
The scent of a cake baked in my childhood home. The laughter of a small child. A hand that held my hand in an hour of fear. One evening when I sat with beloved people and felt there was no other place I would want to be.
The images appeared and disappeared.
Some were astonishingly clear. Others were only a feeling, without a face or a place.
I wondered why precisely those remained.
How many days passed in my life without leaving almost any trace in me? And how many brief moments, to which I attributed no importance at the time, go on living within me even after decades?
I stopped beside a tree whose flowers were small and white.
Their scent reminded me of something.
I did not know what.
I breathed again.
For a moment I felt I was a child.
I did not see a clear image, but an old feeling rose in me. A feeling of safety, warmth, knowledge that someone was caring for me and that I did not need to think about anything beyond the moment I was in.
The feeling was so strong that my eyes filled with tears.
I stood there and wondered how a simple scent could bring back to me something I had not thought about for years.
And then I remembered the Entity of Time.
If time allows us to change, perhaps memory is what allows us to know that we have changed.
But what happens to everything we do not remember?
Does it disappear from us completely?
I raised my head.
"Is there an Entity of Memory here too?" I asked aloud.
I did not expect an answer.
A light wind passed between the branches.
"There is," a voice sounded behind me.
I turned.
The silver bird stood on a low branch.
I had not heard her approach.
"I want to meet her," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I am beginning to understand how little I remember of my life. And if one day I live forever, I want to know what will remain of everything I was."
The bird looked at me.
"Are you sure you want to know memory?"
The question surprised me.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Because not everything we carry within us is pleasant to meet."
I thought about her words.
There were moments in my life I would have been glad to forget. Mistakes, partings, words that were said and could not be taken back.
But they too were part of me.
"I want to understand," I said.
The bird spread her wings.
"If so, continue on the path until you reach the place where the trees cast no shadow."
"And there I will find her?"
"There she will be able to find you."
The bird rose and disappeared between the branches.
I stayed looking after her for a moment, then continued on my way.
A short while later I noticed the forest was changing.
The light grew softer, and the shadows on the ground dwindled. The sun was still visible between the branches, but the light came from all directions.
I reached a round clearing.
At its center was a small, quiet pool, surrounded by pale stones. On the surface of the water there was not even a single ripple.
Around the pool grew thin trees whose leaves were almost entirely transparent.
I approached.
Within each leaf a tiny image could be seen.
In one leaf I saw snow-covered mountains. In another a stormy sea appeared. In a third leaf two birds building a nest could be seen.
I looked at them in wonder.
The images moved.
These were not paintings, but real happenings, as if each leaf kept within it a moment from the life of the world.
I reached out a hand to one of the leaves.
The moment I touched it I heard a chirp.
I removed my hand.
The sound disappeared.
I touched it again.
This time I saw up close a small bird feeding its chicks. I felt the movement of the air around the nest, heard the rustle of the branches.
I drew back.
"Are these memories?" I asked.
"Some of them."
The voice came from the pool.
I looked at the water.
Within it a figure appeared.
At first I saw only a face, then shoulders and hands. The figure rose slowly out of the water, but when it reached the pool's edge I noticed its clothes were not wet.
She appeared as an older woman, with long white hair and dark eyes. Her face was full of fine wrinkles, but as she approached me her features changed for a moment, and she appeared far younger.
I blinked.
Again an older woman stood before me.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"The one you asked to meet."
"The Entity of Memory?"
"So you may call me."
I looked at her.
"Why does your face change?"
"Because you are trying to give me a familiar form."
"And do you not have a form of your own?"
"I have many forms. Memory does not look the same to everyone who carries it."
She sat on a stone beside the pool and motioned me to sit opposite her.
I sat down.
"What did you want to ask?"
I looked at the transparent leaves.
"I want to know where the memories we forget go."
The entity smiled faintly.
"Before I answer you, tell me what a memory is in your eyes."
I thought for a moment.
"Something that happened in the past and remained within us."
"And what if the thing you remember did not take place exactly as you remember it?"
I looked at her.
"Then my memory is mistaken."
"Does it stop being a memory?"
"No. But it no longer reflects what happened."
"True. And here begins the difference between the past and memory."
She picked up a small leaf that had fallen beside her foot.
Within it appeared an image of two children playing beside a river.
"The past is what took place. Memory is the way in which a living creature preserves and processes part of what it experienced."
"Meaning, memory is not the past itself."
"No. It is a trace the past left in you, and sometimes also an interpretation you gave it."
I looked at the image.
"But there are memories so clear that I am sure they are accurate."
"Clarity is not always evidence of accuracy."
She placed the leaf on her palm.
"Think of an event you experienced with another person. Did you always remember it in the same way?"
I recalled conversations in which I tried to remind someone of something that happened, and he was convinced things had taken place differently.
"No," I replied.
"Because each of you noticed different things, felt different things, and gave the event a different meaning. And when you returned to it in memory, you did not necessarily reconstruct it as it was."
"So we change our memories?"
"Sometimes yes. Each time you remember, you may also reshape part of the memory. The knowledge you have gained since, your feelings and the meaning you give the event in the present can affect the way you remember it."
I felt unease.
"So how can I trust my memory?"
"As you trust your senses. With care and with the understanding that they give you important information, but not always complete."
I thought about that.
We are used to relating to memories as proof. Sometimes we argue about them, are hurt because of things we are convinced were said, and even build on them the way we see other people.
"If so, it is possible that I carry within me anger over something that did not take place exactly as I remember it."
"Possible. And it is also possible that the event took place, but the meaning you give it today differs from the meaning you gave it then."
I looked at the water.
"That changes many things."
"Indeed."
I was silent for a moment.
"But what about the feelings? If I remember that I was hurt, even if the details are not accurate, the pain I felt was real."
"True. A real feeling does not prove that all the interpretations you gave to its cause are accurate."
I raised my gaze to her.
She continued:
"A person can feel rejected even when another did not intend to reject him. He can feel loved even when he misunderstood another person's intentions. The feeling tells you what took place within you. To understand what took place outside you, sometimes more than memory is required."
I thought of relationships in my life.
How many times did I interpret silence as lack of interest? How many times did I relate to a word said in a moment of anger as if it defined a whole person?
"Perhaps we need to be more careful when we tell ourselves who the others are," I said.
"And also when you tell yourselves who you are."
The last sentence stirred my curiosity.
"What do you mean?"
"Because you build a large part of your identity out of stories you remember about yourself."
"But I truly lived this life."
"Certainly. The question is which parts of it you chose, consciously or not, to turn into the story of who you are."
I looked at her.
"Give me an example."
"Suppose in your childhood you tried to do a certain thing and failed. Someone told you that you were not talented at it. Years later you still tell yourself that you are incapable. What do you remember?"
"The failure and what was said to me."
"And what do you believe?"
"That I am incapable."
"Are the memory and the belief the same thing?"
I thought for a moment.
"No. The failure is something that happened. The belief is the conclusion I drew from it."
"And must the conclusion remain true all your life?"
"No."
The entity nodded.
"And still, many human beings go on living within old conclusions, even when they are no longer the people who drew them."
I felt something in her words touch me.
"So sometimes what limits us is not the past itself, but the story we keep telling ourselves about it."
"Yes."
I looked at the transparent leaves.
Suddenly I wanted to know how many of the things I believe about myself were born of one event, one word, or a fear that accompanied me years ago.
"And can the story be changed?" I asked.
"It can be examined anew. But that does not mean you must deny what happened."
"What is the difference?"
"You can recognize that you were hurt, without believing you will always be vulnerable in the same way. You can recognize a mistake you made, without turning it into the definition of who you are."
I was silent.
I thought how much power there is in the ability to separate between what we did and who we are capable of being.
"Perhaps that is one of the reasons people find it hard to change," I said. "They keep identifying themselves with what they were."
"And sometimes their surroundings keep reminding them too."
I looked at her.
"Meaning, not only our memories hold us in the past. Other people's memories too."
"True. A person can change, and still keep meeting people who relate to him as he was years ago."
"So what should he do?"
"He cannot control everything others remember. But he can decide whether to go on living by the image they hold of him."
I breathed deeply.
I wanted to keep that sentence within me.
And then I remembered the question I had come with.
"But you still have not told me where the memories we forget go."
The entity looked at me.
"Not everything that is forgotten disappears in the same way."
She rose and advanced to the pool.
"Come."
I stood beside her.
The surface of the water was completely smooth.
"Look inside," she said.
I bent down.
At first I saw the reflection of my face.
And then the water changed.
I saw a small girl sitting at a table trying to tie shoelaces.
The girl tried again and again. Her fingers tangled in the laces, until at last she succeeded.
I smiled.
"I remember that."
"Do you remember the exact moment in which you learned?"
I thought.
"No. I remember that I learned, but not all the attempts."
"And still, the ability remained with you."
I looked at her.
"Meaning, we can forget the experience but keep what we learned from it."
"True. Not every memory is an image that can be raised to consciousness. Part of the past is preserved in skills, in habits, in reactions and in connections formed in the brain and the body."
The water changed again.
This time I saw a young woman carefully touching cold water.
I did not recognize her.
"And what am I supposed to see here?"
"The way in which experience can change a reaction. One who was burned in the past may shrink from heat even before she has had time to think why. Sometimes the body responds on the basis of learning that the person does not explicitly remember."
I placed a hand on my arm.
I recalled the conversation with the guardian of the tree, when he told me my body carries things within it that I do not notice.
"So my body remembers?"
"In a certain sense. But it is important to be precise: it does not mean every organ stores memories like the brain. The body and the brain work together, and experience can change their responses."
I thought of fears that appeared in me without my managing to explain their source, and of a feeling of safety that sometimes awakened following a familiar scent or sound.
"That explains why the scent of the flowers on the way brought me back to childhood."
"Scents are deeply connected to the systems of memory and emotion. Sometimes they awaken an experience even before you manage to identify the event to which it is connected."
I looked at the water.
"And that is what happened to me. I felt something, but I did not know exactly what I was remembering."
"True."
She moved a little away from the pool.
"Now ask yourself: if you do not remember everything that shaped you, do you know yourself in full?"
I did not answer at once.
It was a troubling question.
I had thought I knew myself well. I knew what I love, what I fear, which things are important to me. But how many of those preferences were formed out of experiences I no longer remember?
"Apparently not," I said at last.
"And that is no reason to fear. It is a reason to keep learning."
I sat down again.
"There is something that occupies me more than anything," I said.
The entity looked at me.
"I am afraid of forgetting the people I loved."
The words left my mouth quietly.
"I know that time changes memory. Sometimes I try to recall the face of a person who is no longer here, and discover that I see mostly photographs of him. I remember how he looked in pictures, but less how his face changed when he laughed, or how he looked at me while we spoke."
I felt tears rise in my eyes.
"I am afraid that one day I will not remember his voice."
The entity sat beside me.
For some time she said nothing.
I was grateful for that silence.
"Do you think that if you forget his voice, you will also lose your love for him?" she asked at last.
"I do not know."
"Do you love a person only because you are able to reconstruct his face or his voice?"
"No."
"So what remains in you of him?"
I thought about that.
"The way I felt beside him. The things I learned from him. Part of the person I became thanks to him."
"And perhaps also things you do not know how to identify."
I looked at her.
"Meaning, a person can go on affecting me even when I do not remember all the details connected to him."
"Yes. But that does not cancel the pain over the details that are forgotten. Sometimes it is precisely the small things that we long for most."
One tear slid down my cheek.
I did not try to stop it.
"I would like to keep everything," I whispered.
"I know."
"Can you restore lost memories to me?"
The entity looked at the pool.
"I can show you things that were preserved here. But you must understand that memory is not only a collection of images."
"What else is it?"
"It is also the way in which you give meaning to what you experienced."
She stretched out her hand.
One of the transparent leaves detached from the tree and floated to us.
Within it appeared an image of an older woman holding a small child's hand.
I did not know them.
"What do you see?" she asked.
"A woman and a child."
"What do they feel?"
I looked at them.
The woman held the child's hand tightly. He looked at her, and she smiled.
"Perhaps she is calming him."
"And perhaps he is calming her."
I looked at the image again.
Suddenly I saw that possibility.
"We cannot know from the image alone."
"True. You see a moment, but you do not know everything that led to it."
The leaf rose and returned to the branch.
"So too with your memories. Sometimes you remember what you saw, but not everything others felt. Sometimes you remember what you said, but not what you did not manage to say."
I thought of people I could no longer ask questions.
How many things remained unclear between us? How many intentions did I interpret in one way, when perhaps they had another meaning?
"So we can never know everything about the past."
"Not from human memory alone."
I looked at her.
"And what do you know?"
The entity smiled.
"I know many ways in which experiences leave traces. But I too am not the past itself."
The answer surprised me.
"I thought you could see everything that happened."
"You thought so because you called me the Entity of Memory. But memory and absolute knowledge are not the same thing."
I nodded slowly.
There was something important in that.
Even here, in a world where entities speak of time and of life, not every question received an absolute answer.
"And if one day I give up my body," I asked, "what will happen to my memories?"
The entity looked at me for a long time.
"Do you think your memories are in one place?"
"In my brain, mainly."
"In the form of life you know, memory depends on the activity of the brain and the changes that take place in it. But you are about to learn of other forms of existence."
"In which there is no brain?"
"In which consciousness is not dependent on the body as it is dependent on it now."
I felt my heart beat faster.
"And then I will be able to remember everything?"
"It is possible you will be able to preserve and experience information in ways you cannot imagine today. But even then you will need to understand what is worthy of carrying with you."
"Why wouldn't I want to keep everything?"
The entity looked at me.
"Think of every pain you experienced. Every insult, every fear, every disappointment. Would you want to feel them at every moment with the intensity with which you felt them the first time?"
"No."
"So perhaps the ability to forget part of things is not only loss."
I thought about that.
"Perhaps it also allows us to heal."
"Sometimes."
"But there are things that must not be forgotten."
"True. And therefore wisdom is not found in total remembering or total forgetting. It is also found in the ability to learn from the past without remaining imprisoned within it."
I looked at the pool.
Suddenly a thought rose in me.
"Perhaps that is why we need time."
"Explain."
"Because at the moment something hurts us, we feel as if the pain will remain forever. But with time we change, and the memory receives a different place within us. It does not always disappear, but we learn to live beside it."
The entity nodded.
"And does time alone do that?"
I thought a moment.
"Not always. Sometimes one also needs to understand, to talk, to forgive, to receive help."
"True. The passing of time allows change, but does not promise healing."
I felt I understood something important.
The past is not only a place we return to in thoughts. It goes on acting within us, but it need not govern everything we become in the future.
"I have another question," I said.
"I am listening."
"If the memories change, and if some of them disappear, what truly makes me the same woman I was twenty or thirty years ago?"
The entity rose and advanced to the pool.
"Come and see."
I stood beside her.
The water began to move.
Within it many figures appeared.
A small girl. An adolescent. A young woman. A mother holding a baby. An older woman, whose eyes carried experience that had not been in them before.
All of them were I.
I looked at them.
Some of the images stirred joy in me. Others brought back feelings I had already thought had disappeared.
And then I noticed something strange.
Despite the great differences between them, there was something common to all the figures.
I could not say what it was.
"What do you see?" the entity asked.
"Myself at different stages of life."
"And do you feel all of them are you?"
"Yes."
"Even when they think differently from you? Even when they believe things you no longer believe?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I looked at the images.
"Because each of them was part of the road that brought me here."
The entity smiled.
"That is an important answer."
The water grew still.
"But is the road all that you are?" she asked.
I thought about that.
"I do not know."
"Perhaps your identity is not a frozen thing that must be preserved without change. Perhaps it is also a continuity of consciousness that is able to change, to learn and to recognize itself anew."
I looked at her.
"And if I give up the body, will that continuity be preserved?"
"That is one of the questions you will stand before at the Tree of Eternity."
I felt our meeting was nearing its end.
And still, I wanted to ask one more thing.
"If you could give me one gift, what would you choose to give me?"
The entity looked at me.
"I would not give you a perfect memory."
"Why?"
"Because I am not sure a perfect memory is what you need."
"So what then?"
She came close to me and placed her hand on my forehead.
Her touch was light, almost imperceptible.
For a moment I felt as if many thoughts were passing within me at once.
I saw beloved faces, distant places, moments of joy and sadness. I could not hold any image for long, but something in each of them was familiar.
And then everything disappeared.
The entity removed her hand.
"I would give you the ability to look at your memories without forgetting that they are part of you, but they are not all that you are."
I stood in silence.
I felt as if the sentence opened a place within me that I had not known existed.
"Meaning, I do not have to go on being who I was only because I remember her."
"True. But you do not need to reject her in order to change."
I looked at the pool for the last time.
The water was still, and my reflection appeared in it as I had looked when I arrived.
And still, I felt different.
"Thank you," I said.
The entity smiled.
"For what?"
"For not giving me back the past."
She looked at me with curiosity.
"But for helping me understand what I can do with it."
The entity nodded.
"Continue on your way."
I turned to the path.
Behind me I heard the transparent leaves rustling in the wind.
A few steps later I stopped and turned around.
"There is one more thing I want to know."
The entity stood beside the pool.
"Ask."
"If one day I live forever, will I be able to remember everyone I loved?"
She looked at me for a long time.
"I do not know in which way you will choose to exist. But remember one thing: love is not only what you remember about a person. It is also what his presence changed in you."
I felt the tears in my eyes again.
"And if I forget his face?"
"It is possible you will still carry something of him within you."
I stood there another moment.
It was not a promise that I could restore those I had lost.
But there was in it a thought I did not want to forget.
I continued walking.
The forest opened gradually, and in the distance the immense branches of the Tree of Eternity appeared again.
I thought of all the people I had met in my life.
Some stayed with me for many years. Others passed through them for only a short time. There were those who affected me without knowing it, and others whom I myself may have affected without noticing.
Suddenly I understood that memory is not only the way in which we keep the past.
It is also one of the ways in which the past goes on shaping the future.
And perhaps that is why we carry within us so many things we are unable to remember in words.
I reached the place where the path began to rise gently.
The Tree of Eternity already looked close.
I looked at its wide branches and the golden fruits glowing between them.
Until now I had thought eternal life meant the possibility of no longer losing time.
But after meeting the Entity of Time and the Entity of Memory, I began to understand that the question is far deeper.
If I live forever, not only my time will change.
The way in which I remember, love and understand myself may change too.
And will I be ready to give up part of what I was in order to discover what I can be?
I did not know.
But the closer I came to the tree, the more I understood one thing.
Perhaps our greatest fear is not forgetting the past, but not knowing who we will be without it.
End of Chapter Four
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Three — The River That Does Not Stop · Chapter Five — The Love That Preceded Creation →
