Forgetting faces

I read an essay I wrote with the title “Remembering, Forgetting, Re-membering”, all about museum’s and colonial memory. I used such words as “museal” and "Panopticon" and "decoloniality". Sometimes when I look back on my past self I think "She was so much smarter than I am".  

My Mum works with a boy who cannot remember faces. Each time he sees her, each time he sees me, it is a new beginning. I wonder what he thinks when he sees me again for the first time? Do I look kind, or hunched-over, or hopeful?  When I see Jacob’s face the anxiety in my body melts away and is replaced by love.

And if my past self looked at me now, forgetting who I am and seeing me for the first time what would she think?