Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory is a surreal collection of frozen melting clocks. Graeme Koehne's is an elegy for oboe and string orchestra written in memory of Guy Henderson. Both trigger reactions from viewers and listeners that resonate with the familiar process of recalling memories.
It takes me about five minutes to prepare and cook porridge in my microwave. First — add cold water to the oats and stir until blended.
Inevitably, as I stir for a few seconds, an image slips into my mind of my grandmother sitting by the open fire in the kitchen stirring porridge as it cooks slowly in a large iron pot suspended over hot coals. Grandma warms my school gloves by the fire. The clock on her mantelpiece chimes.
Almost 50 years on, I'm a grandmother myself and you and I are walking together on the beach as our two-year-old granddaughter skips ahead along the shore line chasing the seagulls. She pauses momentarily and watches as they take to the air.
We mind her two days each week and she is a joy in our life. When our daughter brings her to our home in the morning, you carry her to the window to help you feed small portions of bread to the sparrows who gather on the sill.
Our granddaughter looks in wonder as they fly away carrying crusts of bread back to their nests. She seems as fascinated by the flight of birds as I am. I can understand why the first people who spoke about angels endowed them with wings to differentiate them from mere earthbound mortals.
Our last walk together on a beach takes place on a balmy autumn day. The sun is shining, the sea is calm. While there is something beautiful about that scene and that moment, I still wonder, in retrospect, why I said, 'This is almost like being in heaven.' Unconscious, prophetic words, or simply an acknowledgement of perfection in my mind's eye?
"It happens the next day at 3pm. And all the clocks stop then."
But it's not time yet. Many more heartbeats left, days ahead as life continues to unfold, milestones are reached, happiness shared. We spend a morning at the launch of a CD of songs written in an innovative music therapy program by people in hospital with cancer and their music therapist, our daughter.
The next night the wind is howling and I say, 'Do you think the tall pine