Friday, April 23, 2010

Sentimental value.

When I arrived in the U.K. to do two years' research in Cambridge, the first thing to do was to find a home.

I looked around, and found a cozy place on Missleton Court, in the southern suburb. The owner was a professor at University of Cambridge. We shook hands as we agreed on the rent.

There was a small wooden chair in the house. The professor pointed to the chair, and said, "Well, this chair has a sentimental value for me. My father made it for me when I was a child."

Maybe it was the way the professor said these words to me. Maybe it was the particular circumstances. I had just arrived in U.K., preparing myself for days in a foreign soil. The words "sentimental value" associated with the parental love probably struck the chord in my heart.

How strange is the human memory system! To this day, I remember vividly how the professor said it, on the ground floor room, as the sun came through the small green house attached to the side, in which I used to drink beer in the evening, as I looked up at the swallows crisscrossing the sky.

3 comments:

(ma)gog said...

The whole description of today's entry itself must have sentimental value for you.

I love the way English people cherish their surroundings with particular nostalgia.

As I used to spend summer or winter almost every year over ten years in Cambridge, in both good and bad times in my private life,
I have also special sentimental value for this old beautiful university town of England.

nakayan said...

The human memory system is very interesting. The thing or the words is hard to foget when moving the mind. I think new memory is easy to learn when let to join already having own memory together.

Yuzu said...

Dear:Mr.Mogi
Today's title of the qualia journal sounds and refers into me. It is so important and precious meaning for me. I enshrine in the words with pictures.
How vividly powerful the human memory system is it.
Thank you very much. Your qualia journal breathe shine life to life.