Emily St.John Mandel

There is too much world

“I’m no expert, but I remember reading somewhere, every time you retrieve a memory, that act of retrieval, it corrupts the memory a little bit. Maybe changes it a little.”

I am holding hands with my mother. I am very small. We are in Caiette, picking mushrooms in the woods. A memory, but it’s a memory so vivid that there’s a feeling of time travel, of visiting the actual moment. What a pleasure to be here again! “Oh look, my lamb,” she says, stooping to pluck a fluted little orange shape from the dark earth, “this one is a chanterelle.”