Packing Memories - Lack Thereof

Yesterday my wife brought up the topic of packing and moving and how
she couldn't remember any details about a big move she did in her
youth, when her parents were getting divorced and she, her mom, and
siblings moved out of her childhood home which she had been in for at
least 10 years.

That got me thinking about all of the moves I've done throughout my
life.  For each of those the actual acts of moving are mostly missing
from my memory.  At least the packing and unpacking, loading and
unloading a moving truck or trailer or car, etc...

We're in the process of that right now but it's strange and slow and
drawn out because of something else going on which I've gone into
before and don't really feel like detailing again because it would be
off topic.

Is there something about the state of mind one is in while moving all
of their worldly possessions that somehow doesn't lend itself to
properly storing memories and makes it difficult to recall?  Perhaps
the "links" we use to get at memories are often tied to place and
"place" is fluid and nebulous when you're moving.

If you define a place by the walls or other logical boundaries and
personalized by the stuff that decorate it then I can see how
shifting all that stuff around and removing it can cause disconnected
and difficult to access memories.

Ever have a thought, you go to another room to tell someone your
thought, can't remember what it is, go back to where you had the
thought and as if you had left the thought there you pick it up
again.  Of course you didn't drop your thought on the floor and
forget about it but the memory was (perhaps) linked to the scene and
by recalling the scene (through putting yourself back in it
physically) you were able to find and follow that link and get back
to the thought.  The thought was tied to the place you were in when
you had it, or at least the mental model of the place.

Cats have an instinctive need to explore new places and when more
than one cat is in the house to stake a claim on new found
territories.  Leave an empty box on the floor and it becomes a new
place.  A place that needs to be explored, a place that needs to be
claimed.  Fold up that box and leave it flat on the floor.  Again,
small as it is, it's a *new* place and it needs to be claimed, take a
nap on the folded box to make it yours.

Rearrange the furniture in one room.  That is now a new room, the old
room is gone.  This new room needs to be explored (cautiously) and
claimed.

Take some string or yarn of a color that contrasts with your carpet,
lay out a circle in the middle of your living room floor with this,
the interior of this circle becomes a new place that needs to be
claimed.

Places are defined by the borders and boundaries whether solid like
an impassible wall or implied like a length of yarn.  A place's
identity is defined by its contents and their positions: the
furniture, books, television, sink, cabinets, house plants, etc...

Put all those in boxes (but not the sink), redefine the place, and
don't stay there long enough to build a mental model of it, just move
the boxes out then move yourself out, then those memories are not
tied to "the before home" (where you moved from), nor "the after
home" (where you moved to), they're tied to some liminal space
between which we only passed through very breifly and (probably)
never revisit.

Now, you might say something like "Well I have memories of places
I was only in briefly such as hotel rooms or office buildings or
stores in which I was only there for a moment".  But I would say
those are still defined spaces and moving is the act of constantly
re-defining a space.  Furniture is in constant flux, items are 
disappearing into boxes and appearing out of boxes, and the boxes
themselves are constantly moving and shifting.  Nothing is staying
constant enough to define the space.  This *could* affect your long-
term memory's ability to get back at thoughts and events that happened
during that time.  

This normally isn't much of a problem.  Most of what we need to
remember happened in the before place or the after place but the
between place was just a road connecting the two it's not (usually)
particularly important except in that moment.

But, if you're searching your trauma-filled past for answers to what
happened to your family and yourself during your formative years and
trying to understand where things started to fall apart this can be a
huge problem because that moment, when you were in that liminal
space, is the heart of the memories you're trying to access.

Although none of my moves were really tied to traumatic life events I
still have experienced the same memory issues with them so if I can
figure out how to get more details about the actual moving then maybe
I can help her access her own and in that mental space she will find
the links she's looking for.


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