Memorycation and Portemanteau

Suitcases – going places or going home?

Chiharu Shiota’s installation Accumulation: Searching for the Destination is made from approx. 430 oscillating suitcases.

It is a remarkable immersive experience, surrounding the viewer with a sense of journey,

As I looked up, walked under and around, I was reminded of a story I had written last year – a reflection on living and memory, loss and love.

My mother is 87 years old, and I love spending time with her.

She has dementia and every month or so a little bit more of her fades away. She still says, as she always has, darling you never know what’s around the corner.

I really love that. I always have. It is such a positive spin on life – so optimistic.

I hope when I am older, I can be like that.

I love spending time with my mother – she is my past and my present.

I will take her with me into the future.

As we struggle with the Covid-19 pandemic, infections, death and lockdowns, there are many like my mother, battling this other pandemic.

Worldwide around 50 million people have dementia.

According to The World Health Organisation, there are nearly 10 million new cases every year.

For my mother and others with dementia, their worlds are shrinking.

For us, we are in a different kind of shrinking world, a different isolation.

Locked down with millions of others.

The ongoing variants of the Covid-19 virus are infecting and killing people all over the world.

With the spread of the virus has come the spread of new words – the new portemanteaux words of Covid-19.

A portemanteau word is a blend of words and their meanings to create a new word with a new meaning.

It is a fascinating example of the dynamic nature and the responsive nature of language – Words and language are all around us – form the base of our communication, our stories and they have an organic life of their own as well.

For example – spork – is a combination of spoon and fork. Brunch - breakfast and lunch.

In 2021 these new portemanteaux -

Quarantinis, Covidiots, Coronababies, Coronials, Coronacation – we all know that one – making the most of a forced staycation after plans are cancelled.

A portemanteau is also a piece of luggage a suitcase – a combination of French words, porter, to carry and manteau – a coat or cloak – something to carry clothes in - a suitcase.

When I visit my mother, I will take with me, her portemanteau.

Inside the suitcase, the contents can be described by another portemanteau word.

Memorycation

It is a memory vacation for those whose short-term memory is deeply affected with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

Where there is little or no recall of events that have just occurred.

Mum’s portemanteau will be filled with memories of a life well lived.

The tapestries, the knitting she made, she can run her fingers over the stitches and the threads, remembering the many hours of pleasure in creating so many beautiful, handcrafted pieces.

Recipes in her handwriting and that of her mother – rich in family history. Favourite recipes with splotches of food and sauce decorating the pages. Recipes with notations, things like, Jenny’s favourite, reduce the salt, use the red casserole dish.

Photos – so many photos. Her as a child with her parents – black and white memories of a wondrously colourful childhood, wedding photos, children, family, events, grandchildren. The fabric of her life played out in photos.

Letters and cards filled with love.

Maybe I could bottle some of the smells from home – her washing powder, favourite perfume, soup cooking on the stove, the smell of Dad. The scent of living.

Recordings of special things, voices, music, the everyday sounds of life at home.

Conversations. Communications. Stories. Memories.

As our lives, as we knew them, are put on hold, we are living and breathing our own memorycations.

Remembering, thinking, turning things over in our hands, the times from the past.

Unlike dementia, this pandemic will end.

There will be a life worth living, stories worth telling, laughter to be had – new memories to be made.

It’s just around the corner.

#Shiota #QAGOMA