MEM-REEEEES - What Is Your Very First?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My new book is coming out in September, and more about that (of course) much later, but in order to write it, I needed to start thinking about things I remembered as a child. Specific things. And trying to figure out how old I was when I grasped certain concepts. (It's because in MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER something happened to a character when she was an infant up to the time she was five. Now she’s 11–what would she remember?)

And it was truly fascinating, and finding the answers was a bit elusive.

Here's a photo of me with a doll. I have no memory of this, except for this photo. I do look--determined.



I remember my artist- mother painted a big giraffe on my bedroom wall, lifesize. But do I remember seeing it? Or just remember her telling me about it? I think I remember seeing it, and I must have been–3?

Of course I remember my parents, but–really? Do I? I remember my father taking me to Lake Michigan, and we saw a whole fishkill, where dead alewives were strewn across the beach. I bet I was..five. And I was so terrified. But do I remember that? Or was I told that? Ah.

How old am I here? Hmmm. No memory of this. How did my tooth get broken? No idea.



I had a music box, pink, that looked like an old-fashioned radio. I totally can visualize that. At age...3? And another music box where a delicate ballerina popped up and twirled en pointe. It played Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy, I think…but when did I realize that?

And here, I have clearly figured out..something. (Sadly, I could not come close to doing this now.)





I definitely remember reading Black Beauty. I can see myself, in the classroom, and I completely remember, when it was finished, that it crossed my mind “wait, I think this book was about more than a horse.” I had clearly discovered the concept of theme! But by then I was–10.

And I clearly remember lying in bed and worrying about tornadoes. Someone has old me that tornadoes would demolish every OTHER house, and I would try to figure out how, if the tornado would skip our house and the hit the next one, and then skip the next one, etc, how the tornado would have to go so that none of my friends’ houses were hit.

So at some point, I started to think about the welfare of others. (My friends’, at least.) This must have been a result of being traumatized by The WIzard of Oz. So I was…again, 10?

My parents were divorced when I was six. I kind of remember that. And I remember an apartment building where we lived. Kind of.

You see where I am going here. What’s your very first actual memory? NOT what someone told you, but that you actually remember? How old were you?

HALLIE EPHRON: My first memory is of lying in bed and looking out into my childhood bedroom through wooden bars. So I must have been in a crib. Which means I must have been, what, two? Three?

That’s the whole memory. Not very exciting. And I never got to ask my parents whether I really ever was in a crib in that room. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have a very vague memory of being in my crib–I see exactly where it is in my room in the old house. The room is blue and the light is dim, curtains drawn against afternoon sun. I’m supposed to be napping but am sitting up, having conversations with my many stuffed animals. I’m guessing I was somewhere around eighteen months or two?

JENN McKINLAY: I definitely remember my brother jailbreaking me out of my crib when I was two. It’s imprinted on my mind no doubt because we got caught and that did not go well. Lots of my memories have that hazy glow of uncertainty–did it really happen the way I remember or is this something conjured by my brain?

RHYS BOWEN: Hank, I agree that it’s hard to determine what I actually remember, versus what I was told happened. I do have some clear memories. We were looking after a relative’s cat when I was three at the oldest and the cat got away and my grandmother walked around the neighborhood calling “Beauty, Beauty.”   I do remember air raids, deep in my psyche, although I was too young to actually remember details.  But most other clear events are probably what was related to me at some point.

LUCY BURDETTE:  It is very, very hard to tell what memories come from photographs and what we were told and which ones are real. But I guarantee you I can remember I had twin boyfriends in kindergarten and one of them gave me a cone of posies. I was wearing a brown checked, drop waisted dress with a white collar. I would like that dress now!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My earliest memory is being allowed to go into my parents’ bedroom to meet my new baby sister. I have a vivid sensory impression of the white wicker bassinet, the eyelet lace, and the sun coming through the bedroom’s harvest gold curtains. I would have been three years and nine months, and it’s quite a gap until my next memory.

Hank, your mention of the music box that looked like a radio reminded me of a play radio we had - I could turn the dial and see different pictures, and, if I recall correctly, it could be wound up to play music. Hadn’t thought about that in well over fifty years!

HANK: So interesting! Part of my new book centers on what a five year old might remember. Any thoughts about that? What would an 11-year-old remember about being 5? And what is your earliest memory?