Early impressions are lasting. I love the story of a man who compulsively collected swans without understanding why. On cleaning out the attic when his grandmother died, he came across a crib mobile...of swans. Gently soaring overhead, they circled a visiting grandchild and made a lasting impression on him, even if he could not consciously remember this mobile.
For me, it was the harlequin pattern. I found myself gravitating to anything with the elongated diamonds (not to be confused with argoyle). Eventually I came across the "ugly" brown and yellow harlequin blanket my parents had received as a wedding gift. It was stuffed out of sight for decades, but the blanket had imprinted itself in my brain, and I was harlequin obsessed.
The workings of the mind mystify me always. I tried to find something online about early impressions on brains too young to remember --what images will our babies see but not recall--something like this:
If you are inexplicably drawn to something, chances are, you encountered it in infancy but didn't consciously remember it.
But this is the closest I came:
What enters the subconscious of any mind will become a part of that mind, and will, to a degree, affect the nature, the character, the quality, the thoughts and the actions of that mind. Impressing the Subconscious
May we all be imprinted with lovely things, benign things, like swans and harlequins.
At 18, I read "The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James. One scene must have embedded in my subconscious. Recently I revisited the novel and this leaped out at me:
Henrietta had but three days in Florence. She “reminded herself that they must not elapse without her paying another visit to her favorite work of art,” a Coreggio painting of “the Virgin kneeling down before the sacred infant, who lies in a litter of straw, and clapping her hands to him while he delightedly laughs and crows. Henrietta had a special devotion to this intimate scene–she thought it the most beautiful picture in the world.”
[Enter Caspar Goodwood]
“I wonder if you’ve seen my Correggio,” said Henrietta.
Goodwood's retort: “I didn’t know it was yours.”
Something stirred in me, and I remembered a Madonna print I'd bought in my 40s, not knowing why, out of the gazillions of nativity images, I just had to have that one. It was buried deep in the basement, but I quickly dredged it into the light to check the name of the artist. Indeed, it was the very one that had so captivated Henry James (Henrietta).
My Madonna print was matted but not framed. Now I need to find a worthy 16x20 frame--if I keep this on display. For now, I had included it among the Christmas decorations.
In today's Advent reading, Mary DeTurris Poust suggests we position a crucifix among our Christmas decor. Ok. Let's see how that might look.
Yes, I still celebrate Christmas (and to a lesser degree, Easter) despite all my skepticism.
Lately, I have been focusing on this image of mother and child, trying to imagine that the bond is unbreakable. All my convictions have been tested. If early impressions are lasting, I can only hope that my middle child (now a mother of three herself) will realize and remember that the most important life lesson I tried to model and instill is unconditional love.
Not all of us believe in this:
Forgiveness Always and Forever Love
But, hark, the herald angels sing of it, and 'tis the season, so I will continue to hope.
