I remember / je me souviens

I remember / je me souviens

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For those limbic bursts of nostalgia, invented by Proust, miniaturized by Nicholson Baker, and freeze-dried by Joe Brainard in his I remember and by Georges Perec in his Je me souviens.

But there are no fractions, the world is an integer
Like us, and like us it can neither stand wholly apart nor disappear.
When one is young it seems like a very strange and safe place,
But now that I have changed it feels merely odd, cold
And full of interest.
--John Ashbery, "A Wave"

Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
--Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

Monday, September 16, 2002

I remember the mourner's Kaddish during junior services at Congregation B'nai Jeshrun on 89th. Some people would stand up. They always knew they were supposed to, and I sort of knew -- maybe because the prayer book said it was the mourner's Kaddish -- that they must have been mourners. I felt jealous of them for being center stage, and looked forward to the time when I would stand for the mourner's Kaddish. I didn't know how close a relative you had to mourn, though. I think I imagined that some close relative whom I didn't know would suffice.

I remember my grandmothers lighting Yahrzeit candles in glass which burned all night -- I think for their parents and for my Uncle.

posted by william 7:23 AM
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