A lot to think about

Awake early.  Grey and blowing a gale as Gwen used to say, in Seaford this morning. Sat working on my laptop on my kitchen table for a while. Today I took a helicopter view of my manuscript and deciding it needs to be a bit slimmer -- which is a better position than needing more material.  Lorraine off to the gym today, and then saw Sally and Marek for lunch and a catch up. I did bits and pieces of writing, but finding focus a little hard to come by. Off to the gym after lunch and I did a bit more. Something lovely about walking through the streets, with everything seeming cooler and more autumnal, and windy. Autumn must be the most poetic of all seasons precisely because of its mix of beauty and sadness.  

Home again and I spent time reading the book of one of my podcast guest  Lorraine home late this afternoon, having had a good time, and I cooked this evening. After a smidge of TV we opted to listen to music tonight. Listened to Górecki's Symphony No.3.  

I went back onto Ancestry.com and found a photograph of my biological father. This was a face I'd not seen since I was about five. A complex feeling, and struck by how Toby and I resemble him.  

I also found a photo of his mother, who in many ways I remember better, but not with any pleasure. In fact I actually shuddered when I happened upon it -- and she was with two grandchildren, who my half brothers. Obviously a lot to process here, and I have no desire to track down these other children. 

Yesterday Mum gave me the name of a road in Finchley where my paternal grandparents used to live, and where I was left when my mother went to work at Marks and Sparks. I used google maps, and one house looked familiar to me. I have memories of an alleyway behind the house, and on closer inspection the house I had twigged, actually had an alleyway behind it, unlike all the other houses further along the street. Felt like a bit of a detective. 

I gone down this rabbit hole because I have been writing how unreliable memory is, and how most memories are confabulated over time. Who we think we are is governed by the stories we tell ourselves.  My 'memories' of this house and its garden (which now looks completely different, an extension having been built over a bit of it) are not happy. But of course I can never get to the truth of it. But this has prompted my interest in memory as a larger subject. 

A lot to think about, however.