Postcards of Memory - from Debrecen (6)
6. The basement of Subconscious
In summer, when visiting back in Hungary I caught myself gazing down at basement windows in the street. I looked at them astonished. After more than ten years in Japan - in a world of underground trains, passages and even small districts under street level - I forgot about the existence of old, dark and damp basements. You walk along dilapidated blocks of houses in old Budapest or Debrecen, and in the middle of summer heat you are suddenly struck by cool air coming from a dark basement window at the level of the sidewalk. I shieverd and thought of the past, of forgotten memories. I suddenly understood why psychologists compare our subconscious to the dark basement lying below the house of our everyday consciousness. As kids, we needed some courage to venture down to this dark and damp underworld of spider's webs. We used coal heating back then, We kept coal and firewood there, broken toys, all the things we were reluctant to throw away for good, a tricycle we tortured for many years in the yard - all lay here in the dark, in a semi-forgotten status.
One night in Debrecen last summer, I met an old school classmate of mine and he took me for a beer to an underground bar. Piece by piece I put together where we were; in the basement of my childhood neighbour. There used to be a Calvinist priest's house with a quiet garden here; we came and rang the bell on their gate when we happned to kick our soccer ball over their high brick wall. Their basement had been right next to ours. It has been transformed into a jazz bar; a bar of the kind that could be anywhere in the world. Talking about the past with my friend, I realized where exactly I was. After forty years I was sitting among forgotten memories. Both in a metaphorical and a real sense, right inside my own subconscious.
In summer, when visiting back in Hungary I caught myself gazing down at basement windows in the street. I looked at them astonished. After more than ten years in Japan - in a world of underground trains, passages and even small districts under street level - I forgot about the existence of old, dark and damp basements. You walk along dilapidated blocks of houses in old Budapest or Debrecen, and in the middle of summer heat you are suddenly struck by cool air coming from a dark basement window at the level of the sidewalk. I shieverd and thought of the past, of forgotten memories. I suddenly understood why psychologists compare our subconscious to the dark basement lying below the house of our everyday consciousness. As kids, we needed some courage to venture down to this dark and damp underworld of spider's webs. We used coal heating back then, We kept coal and firewood there, broken toys, all the things we were reluctant to throw away for good, a tricycle we tortured for many years in the yard - all lay here in the dark, in a semi-forgotten status.
One night in Debrecen last summer, I met an old school classmate of mine and he took me for a beer to an underground bar. Piece by piece I put together where we were; in the basement of my childhood neighbour. There used to be a Calvinist priest's house with a quiet garden here; we came and rang the bell on their gate when we happned to kick our soccer ball over their high brick wall. Their basement had been right next to ours. It has been transformed into a jazz bar; a bar of the kind that could be anywhere in the world. Talking about the past with my friend, I realized where exactly I was. After forty years I was sitting among forgotten memories. Both in a metaphorical and a real sense, right inside my own subconscious.
posted by bm at 3:20 PM
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