It starts with boiled potatoes – overcooked to the edge of mushiness, then peeled and diced into uneven chunks; and hardboiled eggs, sliced diagonally, cooked so long the yokes fall out and crumble as they are being cut; and chopped sweet onion and celery for crunch; generously salted and mixed with Miracle Whip – not mayonnaise – Miracle Whip.  Served from a very large bowl, still slightly warm and freshly made or quite cold from the refrigerator, it is still my favorite potato salad.  My mother’s potato salad.  Wonderfully simple and basic and imprinted on my memory and taste buds for so long I don’t even remember the fist time I tasted it.

According to a recent New York Times article, that’s exactly why it is my favorite.  The author of the article was writing about pizza choices, but I think potato salad serves as an equally strong trigger for imprinted preferences.  And chocolate chip cookies.

And music.  As an adult , I took a night class called “The History of Rock & Roll” offered on a local college campus when I lived in Indianapolis.  The first night the instructor launched into the lesson with the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly and Fats Domino.  Within the initial few notes, I was in my early teens and living in California.  I could smell the beach.  Suddenly, this was my favorite music – music I could identify with.  Because it was the first music that was “mine.”  (I can also get that thrill of recall with old church music like “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace,” and a lump in my throat every time I hear “Jesus Loves Me.”)  

It’s all about the imprint – the first taste of something.  And therein lies the comfort of it.

We all have our favorite comfort movies, I think.  And books.  People are always offering me their newest book discoveries – great new authors and best-sellers.  But stacked up beside my bed are mostly my old favorites – Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Gouge and Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham and John Moore.  A highly talented actor friend of mine sinks into the comfort of Shakespeare – walking his house reciting it, reading aloud the plays and favorite passages.  I know many of us rejoice in the comfort of the woods and playing with dogs and riding horses and drawing with chalk and making small boats to sail down streams.  All because they imprinted on us first and most and remind us of things.  It’s like they have always loved us best.

Perhaps these things imprinted on us because they did so when we were in a place and time of innocence and vulnerability.  And they became memories that still delight us and touch us beyond reason because they make us feel safe, somehow.  I suspect it’s the flip side of PTS (post-traumatic stress) recall – where terror and horrific imprinting can paralyze us.  Rather, it’s that part of sense memory and pure remembrance that calms us and makes us smile.  It’s that part of memory that we too often forget to claim and enlist.  Perhaps we have simply become too accustomed to walking around in the dark places.  We allow them to take over.  We accept them when they move in and crowd comfort out, like new hard-edged furniture.

And yet, I suspect that now may be a time when our old imprinted comforts are rather more critical and precious than we realize, and need to be revived and revisited.  I suspect we should all go reread a favorite book, and dance to our special music, watch birds in a woods, hug a dog, sit astride a horse, craft a toy boat, draw in chalk on the sidewalk.  I suspect we should get out the big bowl and the Miracle Whip, boil mushy potatoes, and make our mother’s potato salad.