Carraway 1 Nathalie Carraway Ms.

Gardner Honors English 10 1st 31 August 2013 Photographic Memory On a morning stroll in the first few days of May, I made my way along the Seine River towards the Arc de Triomphe. The glassy, reflective water ran downstream under the many intricate lock bridges of Paris, France. I had always loved these bridges, the purpose being to leave a lock on the bridge and to write the name of you and your best friend or significant others names on the lock, and to throw the key into the Seine. This way, the memory would always remain with a physical reminder. As I passed the various beautiful store displays, I faintly remembered having the same experience when I was fourteen with my mother in the year of 2012. I had been in awe of this street, the Champs-Elysees being known as the shopping addicts paradise. We had taken a bike taxi from my hotel in the Latin Quarter. I recalled our driver being a very charismatic man who had moved to Paris from Haiti ten years before. I smiled at the memory from more than fifty years ago, and continued past the original Louis Vuitton store. Finally reaching the picturesque Arc de Triomphe, I gazed at the incredible beauty of the international monument. Each pillar was a duplicate of the other; the two pillars on both sides mirroring each other. I reached into my purse, pulling out a camera that I had brought on my first trip to Paris. The photos that remained on the camera displayed numerous vacations that I had taken throughout the years, to Italy, Hawaii, etc. Looking through the images, I stumbled across the pictures from the summer of 2012.

Carraway 2 The photos showed me smiling with my mother, walking down the Champs-Elysees joking and laughing. These photos transformed into vivid video-like memories through the camera. I saw my mother and me standing, viewing street performers dance perfectly in sync to oneanother and the music. The images continued into my mother and me entering and exiting the stores, coming out with more bags than before. I longed for these peeks into the past to become reality and for it all to be happening once more. Yet each time I looked away from the camera, there I was, alone next to the Arc, in the middle of the Place Charles de Gaulle. I shifted my vision back down to the memories of dancing around through the window of the camera. Suddenly I glanced up at the double decker tour buses, which made their way round the neoclassical architecture of the Arc de Triomphe. I then noticed a girl, identical to the one in the pictures sauntering towards me. It couldnt be Hi, do I know you? I questioned the girl. I noticed the two rings she wore on each of her ring fingers, identical to the ones resting below my knuckles. They had each belonged to my grandmothers from both sides of my family. One held two small peridot encompassing a larger jade piece in the middle, the other holding several garnet gems. Everyday since my thirteenth birthday I had worn both rings, and that tradition of mine had lived on for more than half a century. I looked down at my far more wrinkled fingers, and saw the delicate, gorgeous rings on my hands and smiled at the memories they had held. Of course you know me! Im Nathalie Rose Carraway, you but 14 years old. Were much the same. You have my memories, although I only have some of yours. Im what makes up you and youre what makes up me! she seemed excited to have this supernatural experience.

Carraway 3 My mind was extremely perplexed at this encounter. So if you are me, why exactly are you here? Is there something you need to share with me? Not specifically, but lately youve strayed from your roots. I understand that when growing up you feel like you need to manufacture your own identity, however your true being remains in your past, present, and future experiences and the people who shaped you as a person todayincluding me. Ive forgotten my upbringing, but these rings serve as a reminder to these inspiring and incredible women who have made me as strong as I am today. I briefly looked up away from my rings and saw that my younger self had already gone. The whole conversation was mindboggling to me, so mystifying I couldnt make sense of it. Memories are a complex concept, for if you try hard enough, you can construe the realities within the memories with the illusions of what you wish reality could be. I sighed as I let go of the past and looked to the future, reminded of the added ring on my finger which had in fact, previously been my mothers.