'Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life. How often this has caused me to feel that my memories, and the labours expended in writing them down are all part of the same humiliating and, at bottom, contemptible business! And yet, what would we be without memory? We would not be capable of ordering even the simplest thoughts, the most sensitive heart would lose the ability to show affection, our existence would be a mere neverending chain of meaningless moments, and there would not be the faintest trace of a past.' W. G. Sebald, The rings of Saturn.
I have started reading The rings of Saturn written by Sebald in which he records a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia. This journey that he took is wonderfully similar to the one I took not that long ago along the Norfolk coast and the memories and emotions evoked for Sebald resonate with many that I had on my journey.
I had visited Norfolk as a child with the same people I set out on this walk with so it seemed to unconsciously become a pilgrimage; the nostalgic atmosphere encapsulated and emphasized by the mysterious landscape of the past.
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