Never-Ending Train Tracks and a Magic Beaver Pond

Is my first memory really mine?

I am walking on a single set of train tracks that reach straight toward the horizon.

Bare branches and leafless tangles of shrubbery line the tracks. The sun shines overhead with the weakness of autumn.

I wear my blue and white puffy coat and my white snow pants to guard against the Minnesota chill. The swish-swish of my clothes and the steady crunch of my parents’ shoes is the only sound I hear.

To our right, out of sight, is Lake Superior and the town of Duluth, where we live.

I am two years old.

This scene is my first memory — I think. The image is hazy, with doubt nipping in at the edges.

“Do you remember walking along the train tracks to visit Bob the Beaver?” my parents will ask.

Excitement sparks in their eyes as if my remembrance of these shared special moments will confirm the deep bond between us.

“Yeah, of course,” I say.

Perhaps because I want to participate in that familial bond — or perhaps because I really remember — I start to picture a beaver pond. I imagine the still, brackish waters, the dull green algae, the brown head of a beaver moving across the surface, white bubbles trailing in its wake.

I want the memory to crackle with life. It is the first thing I remember about myself, the first moment that made me, me.

Instead, it is flavorless, which is heartbreaking.

When I was two years old, my most defining characteristic was that I loved my parents.

They encouraged my creativity, letting me imagine stories for my toys and show the first inklings of being an artist, splattering paintings of my hands on construction paper.

They took me out into nature, planting the seeds for my world-wandering. At this magic beaver pond, where my long-ago breath sat suspended in delight, my life-long love of animals began.

All are gifts that have brought light out of the darkness.

Not remembering the beaver pond feels like a betrayal of my parents’ love.

According to writer John Kotre,

Our first memories are like the creation stories that humans have always told about the origins of the earth.

In a similar way, the individual self — knowing how the story is coming out — selects its earliest memories to say, “This is who I am because this is how I began.”

John Kotre, White Gloves: How We Create Ourselves Through Memory

In my mind, the train tracks stretch forever. No matter how far I walk, there they are, suspended in time like a photograph.

I’ve played that one image over and over in my mind so many times that I’ve lost which way is up. Whether it’s a true memory or a fabrication born of a desire to connect to my parents, is lost to time.

When I was two years old, I was awake to the world, becoming me. I was fresh and unspoiled. But I fear my “memories” from that age are not my own.

A piece of me is forever missing.

Thanks for reading! I’m so happy to have broken through my anxiety after not being able to write since July 18. If you’re interested, here’s another story I wrote for The Narrative Arc: