Louis Michael: Identity and memory in the city

I’ve lived in Brighton all my life. And I’ve lived in the same house all that time too. Before going to school, where I heard stories of moving trucks and learnt that one person could live in multiple houses, I thought staying in one place was normal. After finding out that it was my case that was the more uncommon I began seeing the world around me in a different way. I began to be grateful for the chance for my appreciation for my hometown to grow as I did.

Living in the same place all your life creates an idiosyncratic version of that place internally. This unique replica of your surroundings is then projected all around you as you walk those same paths in realtime.

When I walk along the under cliff I see my mum cycling along beside the ocean, fifteen years younger. Hitched to the back of her bike is the florescent child’s carriage where I sit inside listening to tapes, feeling so grown up that I can take a tape out and put a new one in all by myself.

If I sit in Queens Park I can distinguish the outline of memories

When I wander through Rottingdean I see a version of myself that is not only smaller, but softer round the edges. Holding on tightly to his mum’s hand he files into nursery where he cuts fruit at break time and makes sticky outlines of his hand in bright red paint. I see him press his face against the bakery window on Friday cake day, dad’s eagerly awaited end of the week treat that would light up Fridays all throughout primary school. I see the excitement in his eyes when he sees that dad’s brought a loaf when he comes to pick him up from school, and my heart warms as I watch them throw bread together to the ducks in the pond.

If I sit in Queens Park I can distinguish the outline of memories across its length, where amongst the geese and the squirrels I’ve talked incessantly and laughed uncontrollably with friends. Summer evenings spent laying on the grass enjoying the extra hours of golden light, winter evenings huddled on a bench trying to remember what summer feels like.

When you live somewhere long enough the ubiquitousness of its presence in your memories begins to incorporate itself into you and who you are. You begin to find a large part of your identity in the place that has watched your identity grow. For me, all my life I’ve lived in Brighton. Now Brighton lives in me.