Esther Chilton

Your prompt word this week is

TASTE

Taste is one of the most underused senses in writing and yet it can be so powerful. I love the taste of warm, sugary doughnuts, creamy, melting chocolate and the tangy sharpness of grapefruit (not all at the same time!). But taste isn’t all about what we eat. We use it in reference to what we like – in terms of fashion, or music, for example. Or as an experience – in relation to victory, or success, for example. What does this week’s prompt word mean to you?

Fact or fiction, prose or poetry, I would love to read your thoughts on this week’s prompt, but there’s no obligation to share your writing. Here is the work you shared on the last prompt MEMORIES.

Frank Hubeny:

Unrighteous Memories

Those odd memories refuse to stop
like a judge seeking justice on top
of your case every day.
All your lawyer need say,
He’s now righteous. So, let the case drop.

Cathy Cade:

Someone I Knew

I don’t get out much now. In fact, I don’t get out at all,
except for in the garden, with a frame in case I fall.
The meals here could be better. Food don’t taste the same at all.
But sometimes I get choc’lates when outsiders come to call.

A lovely lass came yesterday. I don’t recall her name.
Oh, here it is, she wrote it down. It looks like Sarah-Jane.
Now what a strange coincidence; my daughter’s is the same.
We thought that way she’d have a choice, but she said both were lame.

And now this nice man’s here and rabbiting away full-flow.
Calls me Ma – instead of Margaret – as he paces to and fro.
He didn’t say what his name was and I’m sure I don’t know,
but he brings to mind a boy I once knew many moons ago.

Lou by the Sea:

Late stage dementia. Lou Holmes

(Page intentionally left blank)

Utahan15:

memories best left unsaid

as the living

could resemble the living dead

The Afterlove Voice:

Memories are not quiet things.
They breathe.

Some arrive like sunlight through a kitchen window — warm bread, children’s laughter, a dog waiting at the gate. Those are the easy ones. They sit beside you gently.

Others come like a song you weren’t ready to hear. A scent in the air. A street corner you haven’t walked in years. They tighten the chest before you even know why.

Memories of people linger the longest. Not always the big moments — but the small ones. The way someone tilted their head when they listened. The sound of their keys in the door. The way silence felt different when they were near.

Happy memories glow.
Sad memories ache.
But even the aching ones prove something beautiful — that we lived, that we loved, that something mattered.

Places remember us too. So do animals. A favourite chair. A worn path. A photograph. They hold the echoes.

When I think of memories, I don’t think of the past.
I think of threads.

Invisible strands stitching who we were
to who we are becoming.

And sometimes, when the light is just right,
they shimmer.

Susan Batten:

Memories of shouting kids and lollipops and tigers, dancing to a scratchy PA system in the square. In the cold, the icy pavement’s strewn with lost belongings: someone’s Zorro cape, a plastic gun, a fallen fairy wand, a battered crown. The kids move on, line dancing down the street, a fine parade of moving trees and bears and Draculas, in thrall to frosty Carnival which draws them on; by morning it’s all cleared away, the festoons and the sequins all swept up, just memories

Pensitivity101:

Like everyone, I have memories by the ton, of childhood, family pets, school, work colleagues, my fostering days, past relationships (good and bad), and making memories over almost 37 years with Hubby which included my first time out of the country, and my first flight.

I have beautiful memories of sitting with my Mum under the cherry tree in the garden of remembrance on Dad’s birthday, Father’s Day, the anniversary of his passing, or their wedding anniversary, and we would reminisce about a father and husband, a man we both loved dearly and missed so terribly.

We moved to Lincolnshire originally in 2007, and once we were settled, invited my Mum up for holidays once or twice a year for at least a month each time.

I remember her excitement at seeing so many daffodils along the roadside, nuts growing in the hedgerows, our introducing her to an all you can eat Chinese buffet and watching her sample a little of everything available and going back for seconds of those she really liked.

Outings to bingo, or just to the shops, she was so easy to please and glad to be included.

I got the chance to spoil and treat her, having her all to myself for a short period of time, Mother and Daughter, loving and loved.

I see hay bales in the fields and think of Mum watching the doughnut machine from our lounge window.

I remember the awe she felt seeing an AWAC aircraft fly overhead and waving when we told her it was there to welcome her.

I made her a birthday cake on one of her final visits when she stayed over 2 months, and for the first time in years we celebrated our wedding anniversary, my birthday and hers together as they were all in May.

I see her reflection looking back at me from the mirror, taking me back to a time when our family met up on a regular basis for picnics despite the distance between us.

Happy memories, long in the past now, but remembered well and often.

The Bag Lady:

I have a moving picture frame that was gifted to me and it is a delight. The brand I have is Aura and my family and I can post photos, videos, etc on it. It is so enjoyable, because it holds memories and some old photos I might have forgotten otherwise. I highly recommend this frame if you have relatives or friends that are far away or no longer with us. Sometimes one of those memories will just make my day!

Peter Bouchier:

My hometown
illustrious history
full of memory

*

City of my birth
full of ancient history
and fond memories

Charlie:

I was sitting on the granary steps. Judy our farm dog had been missing all day. She’d returned recently, limping and with her head down, father had taken her to the barn.

“Is she alright?” I asked father.

He shook his head and carried on walking. I followed him to the farmhouse and stood in the doorway. I heard mother tell him.

“Phone the vet.”

“We can’t afford the bloody vet!”

I went back to the granary steps. I could hear, Judy howling. I can’t remember how long I sat there. It seemed like hours, before father stride past me, shotgun in hand.

I waited anxiously, until I heard the shot and father returned. He sat down beside me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“They put poison out, for the foxes, she was always a hungry bugger. Sorry son, there wasn’t any other way.”

John W. Howell:

Now there are only memories left of a life well lived. Some good and some bad, but all part of where we have been. Maybe they go with us at the crossing. Either way they are what makes us while we are here, and should be cherished.

Rohini:

Cached Feelings

There was a town by the sea that everyone swore was magical. People travelled for days to see it. They said the air tasted sweeter there. The sunsets looked like someone had painted the sky with warm honey. The streets smelled like cinnamon and rain.

But one day, a traveller arrived who had been there before. And he frowned.

“This isn’t the town,” he said.

The locals laughed. “Of course it is. The sea is here. The lighthouse is here. The cobblestone streets are here.”

But the traveller shook his head. “No… the town I remember had my mother’s laugh in it.”

He walked to the café where he used to sit with her. It was the same table, the same window, the same teacups. But the chair across from him was empty. He visited the pier where she used to hold his hand. The wood still creaked the same way, and the waves still sang their old song. Yet everything felt smaller.

He sat on the steps of the lighthouse until evening. And then it hit him.

The town was not what he missed. He missed who he was in that town, and who he was with.

That night, when the town lit up like a necklace of golden beads, the traveller finally understood something most people don’t learn until they’ve lost it – places don’t become memories. People do.

You’re absolutely right in what you’re sensing. We don’t fall in love with places the way we think we do. We fall in love with the version of ourselves that existed there, and the people who helped create that version.

That’s why you can go back to a childhood home and feel oddly disappointed, even if it looks exactly the same. Because the home isn’t missing. Your old self is. Your mother’s voice is. Your schoolbag is. Your laughter is. Your innocence is. Your people are.

So the brain doesn’t just store “a place.” It stores an entire emotional atmosphere.

Your brain does not “play back” a memory. It reconstructs it. Every time you remember something, your brain is doing an emotional re-enactment using fragments of images, sounds, smells, body sensations, emotions, and meaning. So technically, you never remember the same memory twice, because the act of remembering slightly rewrites it.

That means nostalgia is not a photograph. It’s a living story.

The hippocampus helps you store and retrieve memories, but the emotional intensity of a moment, especially joy, fear, love, heartbreak gets stamped in by the amygdala.

That’s why you forget what you ate on a random Tuesday, but you remember the exact look in someone’s eyes when they said goodbye. Your brain is not designed to remember facts. It’s designed to remember what mattered.

One of the strangest things in neuroscience is that smell is directly wired into memory and emotion. That’s why a perfume, a shampoo, a food, or the scent of rain can instantly drag you into the past so violently it feels unfair. You’re not being dramatic. Your brain literally treats smell as a shortcut to old versions of you.

People think nostalgia is “missing a time,” but it’s more accurate to say nostalgia is missing a feeling. And that feeling is almost always tied to safety, belonging, being seen, being loved, and being young enough to believe life was endless.

That’s why nostalgia is sweet and painful at the same time. It’s not a memory. It’s a mourning.

So, then,  why do places feel special? Because your brain doesn’t label memories like “Beach, 2018.” It labels them like “Beach, 2018 – I felt free.” “Beach, 2018 – I was loved.” “Beach, 2018 – he was there.” “Beach, 2018 – I belonged.”
The place is just the stage. The people are the plot.

When people say, “I miss those days,” they’re often saying: I miss the version of me who hadn’t been hurt yet. I miss the version of me who believed in forever. I miss the version of me who was held.

And that’s why revisiting places can feel eerie. Because the place stays. But you don’t.

This question always hits me like a punch…

“So what will your memory be ten years from now… if I am there or not… will you remember me?”

This is not a casual question. It carries something underneath it – the fear of being forgotten. And being forgotten feels like a second death. Because it suggests that you existed, and then you didn’t matter.

Yet the honest human answer is…

Yes. If you were part of someone’s emotional landscape, if you made them feel safe, alive, understood, chosen, inspired, or even deeply hurt, you will be remembered.

Not always as a daily thought, or as a name spoken out loud. But as a song they can’t explain. A café they can’t return to. A scent that makes their throat tighten. A certain time of year that feels heavier. A laugh that echoes in their head for no reason. A softness they now look for in others.

People don’t remember everyone. But they always remember the ones who changed them.

And here’s the twist…sometimes you don’t get remembered as a person. You get remembered as a feeling. And that is the deepest kind of memory.

So what will your memory be ten years from now? That depends on what you are building today. Because memory isn’t only about the past. Memory is also a future thing.

You are constantly writing tomorrow’s nostalgia. Every moment you think is “ordinary” is potentially someone’s – I miss that.

Ten years from now, the memory won’t be the restaurant, the road, the city, or the trip. It will be who held their phone in the dark and stayed. Who laughed when life felt heavy. Who made them feel less alone.

The most haunting truth about memories is this…we don’t remember time. We remember love wearing the disguise of time.

As I wrap this up, one thought keeps living rent-free in my head. If memories get rebuilt every time we recall them… how much of your past is actually real, and how much of it, is your heart doing a director’s cut with extra drama, better lighting, and a slightly more flattering soundtrack?

If you’ve got thoughts (or counter-arguments), please drop them below. I’m genuinely curious, and mildly terrified of what we’ll discover.

The Limerick Guy:

A 2 At 10 Is A 10 At 2

Warning – this one is R rated – a little bit bawdy…but a large majority of limericks are!

It has been said that men have a one track mind. A recent study of a college age sample revealed that college age men think of sex nineteen times a day, but not every seven seconds which is a myth. There is no disputing that men are preoccupied with carnal fantasies and the pursuit of recreational sex.

It reminds of the old saying:

A 2 at 10 is a 10 at 2 and that has led to some misadventures one might want to forget or have wiped out with electroshock therapy.

And it led to this:

After an indiscriminate chase,
There are memories we’d like to erase.
But the vertical smile
Has a compelling style…
And a pussy doesn’t have a face!

Kim Smyth:

Right now the first thing that comes to mind is the memory of my Dad. That’s all I have because I didn’t ask enough questions or write the important stuff down. So I have basically pictures and my memories.

I don’t hold a lot of stock in houses we’ve had, people are more important to me and the memories we make with them. Not to say I don’t have fond memories of different happenings in various houses, I do. I just don’t miss a house like my hubby does. I move around so much, I guess I don’t get that attached.

This sounds like a good topic to an essay. Maybe I should think on that a while.

Jules Pens Some Gems:

Another Address

travel day
for family they
were overseas

Half way around the world, temporarily home again…for about two years. Until the next assignment sends them to their next location. We’ll make some new memories for them to take when they have to leave. Eventually we hope they will return permanently when “Mom” retires from the service. After putting in her three decades.

The Dog Lady’s Den:

Haunting Memories – continuing from last week

Afraid to look at the car, yet consumed by morbid curiosity, her eyes swept over the smashed body and peered inside. Bloodied glass everywhere. His blood!

The news broke that very day. After lingering in hospital for several hours, he succumbed to his injuries. A night of drunken carousing, and life was over at age 21.

How fortunate for her they had parted ways the month before. She could well have been a passenger in that vehicle of death!

Ironically, she was just learning to drive. It affected her state of mind and fuelled a burning need to see the wreckage!

---

There would be two days of visitation, followed by a Catholic funeral mass, then interment. According to rumours, the family had insisted on an open casket, despite the severity of his injuries.

This was her first brush with death, and sorrow overwhelmed her. Unable to face going alone, she enlisted a friend to lean on.

A trivial crisis briefly occupied her thoughts. What should she wear? Her wardrobe comprised colourful shirts, miniskirts, and hot pants. That black maxi at the back of the closet would have to do! Knees trembling, stomach tight, she waited for her friend to collect her.

To read more, click here

iMartist:

10 Hours Became a Lifetime

I met my wife on the job. At the time, she was working as a filmer in the microfilm dept.

It was creativity at first sight. Jess was always crocheting at lunch. She was a very shy 28-year-old who, for the most part, kept to herself but perked up when I mentioned my 40th birthday.

She asked if I was interested in Celtic Fest; I said that’s not my idea of a good time. I eventually asked her if she could crochet me a blue turtle. She did (that faded turtle has since 2010 graced the dash of my car).

In return, I gave her a mixed-media painting of a cat I had just finished. After that, we texted constantly and set up a date on Oct 2, 2010.

That date would start with coffee at Borders Books, become a walk and a sit at sunset at a local park, sushi for dinner, talking, kissing, and heavy petting in a Giant Food Store parking lot. This date would start at 2 PM and end at midnight.

In April of 2011, I proposed; we got our apartment in May of that year, and eventually got married on May 4th, 2013.

Thomas Wikman:

False Memories, Strange Memories, Unpleasant Memories and Amnesia

 have false memories, memories of things I know never happened. Not too long ago I made a post on my other blog about false memories and collective false memories, referred to as the Mandela Effect. You can read about that here. In addition to false memories I have memories that are strange, but that I know happened. I also have gaps, or holes in my memory. Memories that are lost to amnesia.

It all goes back to a ski accident that I had at the age of 22. We were a group of youngsters who rented a bus and drove from Sweden to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria in Germany. Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a beautiful Bavarian town, and it is one of the most famous German ski resorts. Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain is nearby Garmisch-Partenkirchen providing for an impressive scenery.

I love skiing and I challenged myself by skiing fast and selecting difficult slopes but on one of the days I made a very bad decision. I have no memories of what follows in this paragraph. It is what I have been told. There was a steep double black diamond slope with a sign stating that the conditions were dangerous and not to go down this slope. I did it anyway, and I fell badly, hit my head (I had no helmet), and I got a severe shoulder displacement. My arm was hanging on my back. I went looking for my skis and I tried to put them back on to continue skiing, but some Germans came down to stop me.

An ambulance was called, and they sent snowmobiles to pick me up. However, the snowmobiles were unable to get there, so they used a pist-machine to pick me up instead. On the way down I discovered my shoulder displacement several times. I was equally shocked every time. That’s how they knew that my short term memory was gone. I also had no pain sensation.

To read more, click here

Miriam Hurdle

Chinese New Year is a bittersweet occasion for my family. Both of my parents passed away on Chinese New Year’s Eves four years apart. My dad had a stroke and died 18 months later. My mom already had Alzheimer’s disease when my dad died. She continued to survive for four more years and died of a complication of heart and Alzheimer’s diseases. When it dawned on us siblings that they both passed away on Chinese New Year’s Eves, we had goosebumps. Did my mom chose which day to go to meet my dad?

Therapy Bits:

Buried Memories

Healing does not come like thunder—
it does not split the sky in two
or burn the old photographs at once.
It comes quieter than that.

It comes like dust settling
on the shelves of yesterday,
like morning light touching
what once only lived in shadow.

There were rooms inside me
where the air was heavy,
where echoes rehearsed
the same unfinished lines.
I kept the doors closed
and called it survival.

But time—
patient as rain—
tapped at the roof of my guarded heart
until I learned to listen
instead of brace.

I began by naming things:
This was fear.
This was grief.
This was love that did not know
how to stay.

The names did not undo the hurt,
but they gave it shape—
and shape can be held.

Some nights the memories returned
like migrating birds,
circling, searching
for a place to land.
I no longer chased them away.
I let them rest
without building them a nest.

Healing is not forgetting.
It is remembering
without drowning.

It is touching the scar
and feeling skin,
not wound.

It is standing in the same field
where the storm once split the trees
and noticing—
green shoots,
tender and stubborn,
rising through broken bark.

I am not who I was
when the sky first fell.
I am the ground after rain—
soft,
newly breathing,
ready for seeds.

panaecea:

Walk in the Evening

The park looks different in the evenings.

Children playing.

Dogs walking with their masters/mistresses.

Senior citizens, men and women, taking walks in groups or alone.

Young men jogging…sweating out the day’s stress.

Young women laughing , chatting , teasing each other. A few sharing secrets.

In one corner, the enthusiasts have put up a net and lights and playing badminton. Their cries of joy of playing well, disappointments at a bad or failed shot, shout outs, pulling each other’s legs, giving instructions to partners…hollering at an acquaintance.

***

After one round and a half I sit down on my favourite bench.

A few known faces wish me. Neighbours.

There are couples who stay all by themselves. Their children settled elsewhere in the country or abroad.

Dutt Sir walks with his nephew. His tricycle trailing behind.

Beenu Mausi takes her niece along. She asks questions incessantly. She replies back patiently.

Toddlers giggle learning to walk…flop down….and walk again uncertainly…

I hear loud discussions on politics, investments, failed policies, family reunion.

***

Then there is she.

I know her.

A widow.

Her husband died of cancer.

The joint family, she was a part of, has now fragmented. Some stay abroad. Some in other cities.

Her daughter was my nephew’s classmate – they were good friends. She was a brilliant student. Now married and settled in another Metro.

The mother stays all by herself.

In a smaller flat.

Their sprawling ancestral property has been sold off.

I see her smiling face.

A regular evening walker.

She has her timings. Sometimes she is off to the market after the walk. Sometimes she heads back home for an early dinner and her favourite TV show.

I try to peer through the fine lines on her face.

Are there remnants of dark memories there ?

Suffering? Agony ? Pain ?

Her eyes crinkle when she smiles.

Her grey hair in a tight bun shines in the moonlight.

She sometimes carries a tote bag… sometimes comes empty handed.

Where does she hide her emptiness ?

Or life teaches everyone to move on just like that packing up the past and shoving it in at the back of some old cupboard.

Did she let the cupboard stay ?

Or

Did she sell it off with countless other useless junk?

Sometimes even memories outlive their utility.

I sigh deeply and get up to go back home.

I must also bundle up my memories and dispose them off… Somewhere remote perhaps.

So that a smile may lurk in the mesh of deep wrinkles etched around my vacant eyes.

Suzette’s B’s Blog:

Grow

sages in ancient robes;

evergreens— teaching pine cones

how memories grow

Rall:

memories

are not always good

sometimes best

to forget

she has some good ones somewhere

but cannot find them

michnavs:

The Last to Fade

when my world is bleak and blurry,
when my memory fades in a hurry,
i wonder what will stay behind me—
will it be the love of those who held me,
or the scars left by betrayal, sharp and deep?

will it be the shadows of unhealed trauma
that rise up, shaking me from my sleep,
the ghosts of the past that linger near,
stealing moments, haunting me with fear?
or will it be the grace of God, shining bright,
the blessings of love, the peace of light?
the joys of abundance, kindness, and grace,
a heart filled with gratitude, no empty space?

i wonder what it will be,
when my world is bleak and blurry,
when my memory fades in a hurry.

Poetry – Cabbage After Christmas:

Patchwork life

patched-up heart

fading patchwork brain

patchwork thoughts unraveling

mismatched memories

tear

remain…

but patchwork soul

is prized possession

redemption stitched

with reddest thread

(Jesus bled)

’round each stained square ~

Thru Violet’s Lentz:

He’s not There

The car lurched, sputtered, and died. She coasted onto the shoulder, before the dashboard lights flickered once, then surrendered.

Perfect. Just perfect.

She pulled out her phone and dialed the tow company, gave her location, thanked the dispatcher, and hung up. Easy. Efficient. Handled. And then came the part she hated- the waiting.

She stared at her phone for a long time, thumb hovering over his name. She could call him. Technically. But he was three states away, probably backstage somewhere, tuning his guitar or joking with the drummer or very possibly- telling some bartender he didn’t have a girlfriend. 

Even if he answered- which he wouldn’t- what could he do? Tell her he was sorry? Tell her he wished he could be here for her? She didn’t need apologies. She needed him there- and that was the one thing he was never going to be.

She hadn’t always felt this hollow.

She flashed on the memory of the first night she met him- nineteen, nervous, but knowing she wanted him. He’d walked offstage glowing with adrenaline, hair damp, guitar still slung over his shoulder. When he saw her, he smiled like she was the only person in the room.

“Wadda ya think?” he’d asked, breathless.

She remembers wanting to tell him that first night how much she loved him- but back then, she worried too much about the girls that followed the band from venue to venue. The ones who watched him with hungry eyes. The girls she knew were there for him- that would do anything for him- and she didn’t want him to think she was one of those girls.

When they first started dating exclusively- it had felt like stepping into a brighter version of the world. Late-night shows, the way he’d kiss her before going onstage, murmuring, “Stay where I can see you.” The way he’d find her after, sweaty and exhilarated and pull her into his arms.

A pair of headlights swept over her, then disappeared down the highway. Damn, not the tow truck. 

It wasn’t the presence of other girls in his life she worried about anymore. It wasn’t the flirting or the rumors or the late-night messages he’d swipe away before she could see them. It was this. 

Moments like this- when she needed him- really needed him- and he was just never there.

***