Forget me not
Last Saturday, a horticulturist at Oxley nursery told me forget me nots refuse to grow in sub-tropical Brisbane—their clusters of soft powder blue prefer to sprawl under other spring skies, he said and raised his hands in surrender. I was hoping to grow some on my balcony to keep things I remembered and loved from my childhood close. My grandmother Queenie grew forget me nots in plant pots, keeping them warm and watered in the front sunroom of her suburban home in Melbourne. Her green thumb gently tended the silky stalks to make way for shimmers of memory with each new bloom to love not forgotten—in souvenance. Without warning this lost word caught my attention and fell 5mm below the surface of this story, the seeds soon to flower souvenirs of remembrance. The word may be forgotten but the feeling remains.
“As for the soul, why did I say I would leave it out? I forget”.
Virginia Woolf
A Writer’s Diary, 27th February, 1926.[1]Virginia Woolf, 1965, A Writer’s Diary: Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by Leonard Woolf, Hogarth Press, p. 85.
A story, just like a flower, begins to grow
The world is full of lost words waiting to be found. Liking the sensations souvenance gestures towards, I decided to take this one seriously and follow its roots around knowing that the meaning of words, perhaps like stories, reveal themselves when they are ready. Perhaps not surprisingly, like memory itself, my footsteps take me through a network of information which slowly but surely begins to activate a pattern.[2]Neuroscientist and author Lisa Genova, explains where and how memories come to exist in your head in her 2022 book Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. She explains, that … Continue reading I first learn that “souvenance” or “sovenance”, is a 13th century French word which draws together souvenir and memory as one, thereby firmly grounding the notion of remembering in its etymology. The seeds of souvenance spread freely across legend, location and language with memory and love embodied in her forget me not leaves. Greek legend tells us that Zeus, mistakenly thinking he had named every flower in the world, was reminded by a small blue flower he had overlooked one when it called out “Forget me not!” Taking note of its oval furry leaves, Zeus saw fit to call it “Myosotis” or mouses ear.[3]Searching for origin stories associated with the name “Forget-me-not” I came across many, many narratives online linking this small blue flower with the Greek god Zeus. None of the sites however, … Continue reading A similar story from Christian Europe suggests that while God was walking through the Garden of Eden, the shy flower failed to remember its own name when asked and God felt that baptising the blossom a “forget me not” was a kind way to ensure such failure would never happen again.[4]This version of how a forget-me-not was gifted its name can be found on the following blog post by Elizabeth—a UK writer and academic who is attempting to live a natural lifestyle—“Growing … Continue reading Other souvenance stories grow from medieval legends in France, Germany, Denmark and England all of which variously involve a chivalrous male, a beautiful female, a serene walk by a flowing stream with petals of blue framing its banks, a romantic gesture to fetch flowers, an unexpected fall into the water, and a final call of undying love from the gallant male to “Forget me not!” as he sinks forever.[5]This information can be found on the Floral Tea Canadian/French blog post … Continue reading Nahant: The Floure of Souvenance by American romance writer Jeannette Hart in 1827,[6]This 1827 novel by American writer Jeannette Hart was the first source I found which mentioned the word “souvenance”. It was available as a pdf in the university library but there is very … Continue reading adds a new layer to the narrative whereby the young protagonist believes that whoever receives the flower from the hand of her lover will remain faithful until the end of time. But alas, he too is subsumed by the stormy sea as he flings the small blossom, he has so courageously gathered, to his sweetheart standing on the shore.
There is an enchantment that seems to happen in the moment of encounter between people and this flower with five tiny petals of blue, and it shimmers with the magic of remembering love. During COVID, I started to record phone conversations with Mum about her life while she was still able to recollect stories of people, places and particular moments that mattered to her. We talked about cherished childhood toys, subjects she loved at school and favourite family recipes; the best advice given by her mother and grandmothers, and how she chose names for her daughters; as well as things like her bravest moment, times when she had struggled for money, and the thrill of her first job working in the city. Long after the click of the call ending, the veins of Mum’s stories continue to trace lines of connection just beneath the surface of the memories made between us.
In those moments, notes of vanilla, mandarin and jasmine blossom, the signature scent of Opium perfume she has worn for as long as I can remember, fill the air—and she is close, even though it feels like she is moving too fast too far away. There is one response which seeds repeatedly—“I can’t remember, love” is the first thing Mum would often say. When I listen back to the recordings, there is always a brief but discernible pause after these words are spoken; we are swaying too near the shadow side of the shimmer her stories speak to and we scramble as best we can back to safety. “Let me have a think about it”, Mum would say, “and I’ll give you a ring back on Saturday”.
Saturday 30 September, 2023
Sometime in the morning
Stepping out of the car at the Croydon nursing home, hints of summer float on the September breeze. My cousin Joanne parks in the space next to mine.
“Ready?” she asks.
Time folds back in on itself and there we are. Two girls running gleefully through the sprinkler, jumping as high as we dare on the trampoline, eating unripe blood plums in between. Two girls sitting at a red laminated kitchen table, drinking cups of strong white tea with one, playing and losing gin rummy, listening to the women we love talk about life. Two girls whispering in the dark of shadows and dreams and our future 52-year-old selves.
“Yes”, I nod and here we are.
Two women, no longer girls, turning the pages of a story we did not write.
It takes some time to find my Auntie Rob and when we do, she is visiting residents in another room. Her grey hair is pulled back into a ponytail and without make up, she is bare and beautiful. Briefly, she glances up as we come in, but returns to the conversation with shadows she alone can see.
Gently holding her elbows, we guide Auntie Rob back to her room and shuffle together slowly outside to a garden chair in the sun.
“Look Mum,” Joanne turns her head. “It’s Elizabeth, she’s come all the way from Brisbane to see you”.
Auntie Rob’s soft blue grey eyes focus.
“Yes, it’s me Auntie Rob”, I reassure her. “I’ve come to see my favourite Auntie, but don’t tell Debbie that!”
There is a shimmer in the air as souvenance slips into her soul and wraps the love we share around her, but for a moment, and she smiles playfully.
“Oh no, I won’t tell Deborah!” she says.
Me, Auntie Rob, and Bella sharing a smile on 12th December, 2022
Sometime in the afternoon
Lately when I visit Mum at Mercy Place, I bring a small cosmetic bag with me. It’s my home-made manicure kit complete with a pair of chrome plated nail clippers, large black emery board, three-way high shine buffer, a tube of nourishing cuticle oil, Sally Hansen nail polish remover, L’Occitane rose hand cream and two bottles of nail polish in shades of dusty pink. Before she went into the nursing home, Mum would have her nails done every two weeks at Holy Hair Nails in Armstrong Street and giving her a manicure feels like one thing I can do to bring a little of what was then to here and now. I gently take her hands in mine and appraise the condition of her nails. They are slightly long and unchipped, her skin soft and paper thin.
“No need for you to be ‘soaking in it’ today Mum”, I smile.[7]If you grew uo watching television in Australia from the mid60s onwards, there is every chance you also grew up hearing the words, “It’s mild on your hands while you do dishes—you’re … Continue reading
She laughs, “Thank goodness I don’t have to wash dishes anymore!”
As I go through the routine of clipping, filing, buffing, applying oils, cream and polish, we talk quietly. We talk about Max and Hamish and their latest escapades with girls, at school, and on the football oval. We talk about my older sister Sally and her children, and how she’s the social butterfly in the family and always busy. We talk about my Dad, where he is and what time he will be in to visit today. We talk about my younger sister Natalie, how great joining the gym has been for her, and how she is getting stronger every day.
Every so often when our talking lulls, she squeezes my hand gently and asks,
“Are you happy Beth?”
Time folds in on itself once more to make room for the feelings of memory in Mum’s soul to shimmer through her skin to mine; she knows the answer even though she cannot remember why.
That’s what souvenance is for
This photo was taken the day Auntie Rob was married with Mum as matron of honour. It was the 12th February 1971 and also my grandmother’s 50th birthday.
Last Saturday, the Brisbane City Council were giving away free native plants on the bottom floor of Westfield Shopping Centre in Indooroopilly. By the time I remembered, there were only a few pots left and I happily adopted a small native violet for our apartment balcony—the horticulturist at Oxley nursery had suggested that this tiny purple and white flower closely resembled a forget-me-not and assured me it would thrive in our humid climate. Even though the two flowers are not the same, their tendrils are now tied to the emotional memory of visiting Mum and Auntie Rob on the last day of September in Spring and the feeling of love that passed between us—akin to Emily Dickinson’s “thing with feathers—that perches in the soul—and sings the tune without the words—and never stops at all”.[8]Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”, #254, The Complete Poems, 1970, p. 116. There are no words strong or beautiful enough to hold that feeling and those that follow seek to flee from the shadow side of memory loss illness towards the shimmer. I will remember in that moment of being together and apart, dementia became a sleeping absent creature and gave us sweet reprieve to return our souls to the talk and tears and travels and troubles and triumphs so deeply embedded in the shared stories of who we are, and how we love and feel loved by one another. Remembrance has a back and a front[9]Emily Dickinson, “Remembrance”, #1182, The Complete Poems, 1970, p. 524.—indeed, a shadow and a shimmer—and when the door to the past shuts, perhaps it is enough to know that “you don’t need memory to love and feel loved”[10]Lisa Genova, 2022, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting, Simon and Schuster, p. 232. because that’s what souvenance is for.
References
↑1 | Virginia Woolf, 1965, A Writer’s Diary: Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by Leonard Woolf, Hogarth Press, p. 85. |
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↑2 | Neuroscientist and author Lisa Genova, explains where and how memories come to exist in your head in her 2022 book Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. She explains, that “memories exist physically in your head through a neural network of associations” (p. 22) which become reactivated through a linking of sights, sounds, smells, touch and feelings connected to an experience. Brains are clever like that, being able to retrieve the things we paid attention to in the moment in the first place and bring them home to us. Memory loss illness changes the brain’s capacity to embark on such recall adventures and rendering it incapable of returning memories back to where they belong in one piece. |
↑3 | Searching for origin stories associated with the name “Forget-me-not” I came across many, many narratives online linking this small blue flower with the Greek god Zeus. None of the sites however, provided any “concrete” evidence that this could be “true” and lacked reference to Greek literature or academic sources about them. I reached out to my lovely and very smart “go-to-guy-for-all-things Greek”, Professor Alastair Blanchard—the Deputy Head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry and the inaugural Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland to see if he could assist in providing further information. It is not the first time I have asked Alastair a left-field question related to Greek myths and legends. Years ago when my youngest son Hamish became besotted with the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series written by Rick Riordan, I asked Alastair what he thought of them and if, in his expert opinion, they were a credible retelling of Greek mythology. He replied that he had read and loved them too, and we quickly devoured each book in the sequence. The response I received from Alastair about Zeus and the forget-me-not went like this: “I love these sorts of questions. I just had a quick look in the standard sources and I’m pretty certain that the story of Zeus isn’t classical. Part of the problem is that myosotis means literally ‘mouse ear’ from mus ‘mouse’ and ota ‘ears’ whereas the myth seems to require the name to mean something like ‘forget me not’. I’ve had a quick look in dictionaries for words that might mean ‘forget me not’ in Greek and there isn’t anything…it looks like a later fiction to me”. I thanked him effusively and asked if he had read Natalie Haynes—a fierce femme fatale fiction writer who is bravely retelling Greek myths about women from the perspective of women—and her recent book Stone-Blind: Medusa’s Story which I loved. “I’m a big fan” was his reply and it came with a recommendation to read The Children of Jocasta which now sits on top of my Christmas reading pile. |
↑4 | This version of how a forget-me-not was gifted its name can be found on the following blog post by Elizabeth—a UK writer and academic who is attempting to live a natural lifestyle—“Growing Forget-me-nots; Forget-me-not Legends and History”, https://starofnature.org/growing-forget-me-nots/ |
↑5 | This information can be found on the Floral Tea Canadian/French blog post https://lesthesfloraltea.com/en/blogs/histoire-des-fleurs/histoire-du-myosotis#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20medieval%20legend,’t%20forget%20me%22%22! |
↑6 | This 1827 novel by American writer Jeannette Hart was the first source I found which mentioned the word “souvenance”. It was available as a pdf in the university library but there is very little information about her to be found as aside from a chapter in Remarkable Women of Old Saybrook (2013) by Tedd Levy devoted to her. Here, she is remembered as an unrecognised early romance novelist of New England who wrote three novels and via a brief recounting of her life, Levy seeks to return her to the pages of history. |
↑7 | If you grew uo watching television in Australia from the mid60s onwards, there is every chance you also grew up hearing the words, “It’s mild on your hands while you do dishes—you’re soaking it!” made popular by Madge the manucurist in Palmolive advertisements for dishwashing liquid. I often heard Mum use this phrase as she filled the sink with hot water to wash the dirty dishes piled there, almost to distract herself from the domestic drudgery of this daily chore, and I often hear myself now saying the same. |
↑8 | Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers”, #254, The Complete Poems, 1970, p. 116. |
↑9 | Emily Dickinson, “Remembrance”, #1182, The Complete Poems, 1970, p. 524. |
↑10 | Lisa Genova, 2022, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting, Simon and Schuster, p. 232. |
Again, very moving. i helped to nurse my father through dementia for more than ten years and can empathise with watching someone ‘disappear’ (in a sense). It is an extraordinarily trying time, for everyone. You manage to traverse the grief deeply yet your writing leaves one feeling uplifted. A true gift x PS: how does one obtain a password? x
Just beautiful! I’m off to call my Mum x