Sound of the Screen Door

With Jane gone for a couple of days, I thought I’d build her a screen door leading to our front porch. It only took a day (seen in the photo above), but I wasn’t expecting the effect when I opened it for the first time.  I hung it with spring hinges and had it close with an old-fashioned spring clamp.  The sounds of that door hardware flooded over me and transported me back to my childhood some 60 years ago and the exact same sound of the screen door on our house in Calgary.

We’ve all experienced this kind of sensation at various times in our lives and when it occurs, the process of time disappears, replaced by a moment from an earlier era that is as real as anything in the present.  I went through the procedure again, only this time letting it slip from my fingers and bang against the door frame.  There it was again – that sound, that memory, that reality, that gift.

Psychologists call it a “mind pop” and it’s common, on average one a day, though everyone is at a loss as to how it occurs in all that complexity that is the human brain.  They are likely to suddenly arrive during daily routines or when the mind is distracted by something.  And it especially happens during seasons of emotion, like Christmas. In order to keep from getting distracted in our daily responsibilities, the mind files these memories away somewhere. But they are recorded and they can reintroduce themselves when we least expect them.

And the sensations that arrive with the thought can be overpowering.  For whatever reason, the moment the door made the familiar sound, I smelled the hairspray my mother always wore.  And I was sure I felt the rush of clean air that so frequently ran down from the Rocky Mountains, over the foothills, in into our Calgary suburb. I’m sure I smelled it, but how could that be possible?  Because it was filed in my memory and emerged full-blown into my consciousness.

Though commentators frequently compare the brain to a computer, it’s more dissimilar from such devices than we imagine.  Such information stored in our minds are full of emotion, sounds, smells, happiness and sadness.  Computer bytes don’t house such things; neither can they convey them.

Modern science has revealed that our memories are actually never lost, but that our ability to retrieve them dissipates over time.  They are there, but we often can’t place them.  This has been hardwired into our brains over millennia as a means of survival. If we remembered everything,, we couldn’t prioritize and focus as required.  The brain gets used to this and keeps the information that we urgently require at the forefront.  It’s how we learn.  It’s one of the secrets to our endurance.

But those other recollections aren’t gone and over time they emerge to surprise us – just like with Jane’s screen door.  It is this aspect of human nature that has intrigued researchers regarding dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Those afflicted by such diseases, while forgetting so much, nevertheless have clear recall of memories from their earliest childhoods, things they had probably believed they had forgotten.

Such things can be a curse as well as a blessing, naturally enough.  Those in grief or emotional pain frequently talk of hurtful memories suddenly materializing.  It’s part of the human condition and must be endured and learned from.

But on those occasions when that special memory leaps into our senses, however briefly, history returns in an instant, years fall away, and it’s like you’re right there.  And in truth, you are.  They are real memories.  Sometimes they’re not fully accurate but the senseof them transcends all else.

That’s what happened to me this week.  Through the simple exercise of opening and closing a door, my mother was right there and my father’s pipe smoke wafted along the mountain breeze.  I couldn't reproduce it later, but the realness of it caused me to sit on the step with thankful thoughts of their influence all those many years ago.

All that just from the sound of a door shutting.  No, my mind isn’t a computer.  It contains the essence of remarkable moments and when it suddenly unleashes them into my consciousness, I become alive all over again.  I become even more human.

If you're interested, I recorded the sound file of the door closing. Perhaps you'll remember it, too.