Wandering Memories
I am running down a jungle path, a lane of reddish dirt bounded by giant leafy fronds. The ferns tower over me and crazily lurch in my vision as I toddle haphazardly with the speed of joy, excited to be going somewhere. Soon we're in a museum in the jungle, I stare in amazement at colorful butterflies lined up under glass cases.
I thought this was a particularly memorable dream until one day I, as an elementary schooler, happened to mention it to my mother, sitting in our California home by the bookshelf topped with my great grandfather's old globe.
“Oh that wasn’t a dream, when we were in Brazil when you were two there was a jungle path and museum just like that.” she told me, to my surprise.
My father had been born just outside Rio. I was not, but some of my first memories were born in Brazil. The jungle and museum are joined in my memory by a spiral slide in a park, and then given further re-enforcement by two pieces of external evidence: a surreal painting of Rio by my grandmother, the abstract style of which is not unlike my memories; and a photograph of my mother holding me at the base of the colossal Cristo Redentor statue that spreads its arms above Rio, the iconic megalith of Sugarloaf visible in the harbor down below. This is the first photograph I am aware of in which I am recognizable for other than a ubiquitous baby -- to me, this memory and this photograph mark the beginning of my life.
Memories sometimes need external confirmation to be believed, and sometimes external confirmation creates memories that may be merely imagined. But received memories can be as significant as the genuinely experienced.
It could be said my earliest memory, that is, the earliest image I have in the montage of things that make up my self identity, actually takes place on February 14th, of the year 1630. On that date I picture a longboat crashing through the surf to run up the sand on a tropical beach, sailors jumping over the side to haul it up out of the waves as quickly as possible. In the background a large squadron of galleon-like sailing ships ride at anchor.
Among the adventurers to swing himself over the side of the longboat and plant his feet in the soft Brazilian sand is Caspar van der Ley, a 35 year old German. I imagine him with the beaky nose of my Brazilian grandfather, under the sort of floppy broad-brimmed felt hat in fashion at the time, as he surveys this new land in which he'd settle. What dramas and trials did he leave behind in the mists of Westphalia, then in the grip of the bloody 30-Years-War?
In 1653 I picture a young Robert Ransom stepping ashore on the sheltered coast of Cape Cod to join the rudimentary colony of Plymouth. He must have gazed in awe at the vast primordial forests teaming with mysterious natives and unexplored expanses. I imagine him with the boyish all-American grin of my Ransom uncles in pictures of their boyhood. He's first recorded as a servant, and I can't picture a Ransom as a Puritan, so he was probably one of the “strangers,” non-Puritan indentured servants in the colony. Court records indicate he was a mischievous, fractious lad, and one can only imagine what had propelled him from turbulent Cromwellian England to this challenging new world, and bearing a surname like “Ransom,” surely there’s a story there.
A sleigh speeds through the night, hissing along the packed snow of the road from Russia, headed west to Konigsberg in Prussia. Branches whip past overhead. Wolves howl, to the left, to the right. Friederike von Magnitsky peers nervously over the back of the sleigh, a heavy fur hat pulled low over her head. Is that dark shape just barely visible in the gloom behind them a pursuing wolf? It's 1831, and the earliest specific image passed down to me from first-hand description, in a faded letter to her granddaughter Sidonie.
July 17th, 1913, Germany - Wilhelm Fricke and his newlywed wife Sidonie bid goodbye to their families. Behind them the steamer Zeelandia bustles with activity as it prepares for the passage to Brazil. Did they know it was forever? Did his sister cry? Did his mother beg him to reconsider? Did his younger brother leave accusations of hating their fatherland ringing in his ears? Did Wilhelm sense the rising toxicity of nationalism and acrid winds of war, or merely long for the world's frontiers?
1993 - In a classroom in California, I'm taught about the pilgrims of Plymouth colony, with their belt-buckle hats, and the waves of immigrants to America. Grainy black and white footage shows packed steamers passing the Statue of Liberty. At the time it doesn't occur to me that they have a past, that they may arrive with broken hearts grieving their lost homelands. They seem newly created beings without a past.
2012 - I'm living with seven Brazilians in an apartment firecoded for four, in Brisbane, Australia. I never meet the landlord illegally profiting off this overpacked apartment, but I know they are a Brazilian by the last name of Wanderley. They are almost certainly a fellow descendant of Caspar Van der Ley. After 400 years and 10,000 miles, here we are, still traveling ever westward together.
2019 - “Hi, euh, well-come to Schneets, how, eurm, I helpe you?”
The employee behind the counter at the fast food schnitzel chain here in Australia speaks with an extremely halting Chinese accent. From her nervous demeanor I suspect it must be her first day. I was feeling tired and grumpy, and may have scowled for a moment.
But then, in half a second, four centuries of memories flashed through my head, from Caspar's bare foot sinking into the Brazilian sand to the SS Zeelandia rounding the Sugarloaf. I remembered the heartbreak and loneliness, and thought of the added burden of a language barrier and racism she must face from local bemulleted Australians of the type that don't bother to reflect on their own history.
It must have shown on my face, because next thing I knew she was smiling warmly at me. She finished her spiel with markedly less nervousness. I sat down to contemplatively enjoy the somewhat bastardized cuisine of a fatherland I never knew.
It's 2020, and I walk in the Australian rainforest beneath towering ferns. My migrant visa for Australia will soon run out. The entire world has the apocalyptic feel of the global pandemic with migrants and expats feeling cut off and isolated in ways they haven't since the advent of modern air travel. US State Department advisories admonish us that if we don't return by the next available flight they can't guarantee there will be another. Should I return home to America or spend $13,000 on a visa to stay in Australia. My mother's recent words begging me to come back still ring in my ears, as do my brother's accusations that I hate America. But I don't hate America, I love it more than I ever knew, but sometimes that's not enough.