Coffee memories.

Guadeloupe
May 13, 2019 3:21am CST
A cup of coffee took me by surprise this morning. It released a memory that has been lurking in my subconscious for a few years, a memory of Paris. It came as a shock that it took no more than a sip of perfectly made coffee to open the flood gates. I saw the faces, felt the rain, smelled the cigarettes. Its atmosphere that connects Guadeloupe to Mainland France, not politics, not history, not language but atmosphere; atmosphere conjured when memories are unexpectedly aroused.
3 people like this
4 responses
@MALUSE (69409)
• Germany
13 May 19
What has happened to you has been described by the French writer Marcel Proust. Even people who have never read a book of his know it. It's the famous 'Madeleine' scene. "In In Search of Lost Time (also known as Remembrance of Things Past), author Marcel Proust uses madeleines to contrast involuntary memory with voluntary memory. The latter designates memories retrieved by "intelligence", that is, memories produced by putting conscious effort into remembering events, people, and places. Proust's narrator laments that such memories are inevitably partial, and do not bear the "essence" of the past. The most famous instance of involuntary memory by Proust is known as the "episode of the madeleine", yet there are at least half a dozen other examples in In Search of Lost Time. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea." Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
1 person likes this
• Guadeloupe
13 May 19
@maluse Thanks for that. I never had the courage to tackle Proust and now you have saved me the bother!! All I know about him is that he was best man at Henri Bergson’s wedding.
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
13 May 19
Sometimes the smallest thing can evoke memories.
1 person likes this
@rakski (112925)
• Philippines
13 May 19
I hope those are good memories
• Agra, India
13 May 19
Yes...sometimes memories seem to conquer our complete self.