Anchor Memories

It’s quite chilly outside. I am with friends in a cafe enjoying a tall cup of hot coffee after a hearty breakfast at the B&B we were staying. Just when the discussion moves over to history of the place, I start feeling a bit giddy thanks to the food poisoning bout I had earlier in the month. It didn’t change the travel plans but it made me quite nervous. Every time I felt some issue with my digestive system, I used to get panicked the loose motions might restart. They had subsided almost after a month.I blame the feeling on the coffee, I know I can’t tolerate milk and still I couldn’t resist having the coffee. I get and go to the restroom and the world around me starts spinning. My head is turning in all possible directions and my brain is making a futile attempt to grasp the stuff going around me. I sit on the toilet seat. Suddenly I get flushed inside and I enter a place where everyone is just entering the office. No, that’s not a normal office, it’s the Ministry of Magic and I, a muggle, have managed to enter it somehow. Wait, do I too have magical abilities??? I start running and enter an alley, it’s the Diagon alley. Am looking at wands when suddenly I touch a port-key which transports me to seven sisters’ hills. My hubby joins me and we end up watching the Quidditch Tournament. Lovely!!!! Just when the game is getting interesting I hear someone calling me. “A”, come out, I need to go, you been inside for a long time.

Before you jump to conclusions, I didn’t dream of the place, neither was it imaginary. The cafe is real, it’s called The Elephant House and is located in Edinburgh. J K Rowling wrote first Harry Potter Series Book in this Café and the restroom I visited has its walls filled with graffiti of dialogues from the book. Just looking at the entire restroom can make your head spin. 

Am I making this dream up? It’s not a dream, it’s my Anchor Memory. The memory is a collection of few cherished moments of a two-week vacation. Moments spent visiting the 9 ¾ platform at King’s Cross Station, Seven Sisters, The Elephant House and the graffiti inside it.

Few of my other topmost Anchor memories are about getting my first mark sheet from my kg teacher, working on the space rocket project with my father, learning the bicycle from my brother, an impromptu movie festival session with my parents, going shopping with my best buds hubby S for G’s first gift, a cooking session with my mil to make kharvas, talks about life experiences with a friend where I talk and he listens most of the times, bonding over movies with a complete stranger in Mexico, and the best one till now , me sitting alone over a small hillock at the base camp looking over to freshly snow clad Himalayas, enjoying the misty morning freshness with a cup of tea and a blank mind.

Anchor memories need not be centered around birthdays, Diwali celebrations, annual vacations, college festivals, work achievements, etc. I feel most of these occasions sort of blur out or get overwritten with similar experiences.

For me, these moments are those ones where company of certain people (parents, siblings, friends, strangers), certain places (from restrooms to palaces), certain foods (yes important for me), certain smells (freshly cut grass, mangoes, first rains on mud) and their combinations has stood out the most and triumphed. These moments have lasted from few secs to few hours, I do not have photos / videos of most of these memories but they have been stored in my mind and heart in the brightest colors anyone can imagine. I might never get a similar experience in the future or if I am lucky enough I just may, who knows.Anchor memories are ones which help us to survive those moments when we are most stressed, when we feel caught up amidst a storm which is trying to drown us in it’s high tide. They anchor us to the beautiful moments of our life and pull us out gracefully when required.

Before it’s too late, turn off the noise around you, go inside your mind, reach out to your heart, find out the moments you truly madly deeply loved and convert them to you Anchor Memories. Make moments pleasurable for those around you, help them create their own Anchors.The world today, no matter how “socially friendly”, is a lonely and stressful place most of the times. It is in these times the Anchor memories are most helpful.

The moment you feel negative, recall an Anchor memory to survive it and then move on positively. It’s like creating your own Expecto Pretonum charm.

What’s your Best Anchor Memory?