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

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

I remember how I used to stand watching Star Trek with my sister at the door of the bathroom which connected the library with my room. I would lock the door to my room in case anyone came in that way, so that I could claim to be in the bathroom; and I would duck into the bathroom if anyone tried to open the library door, so that they (my parents) wouldn't know I was watching TV when I was supposed to be doing homework. I watched a lot of Star Trek that way. It's not perfectly obvious to me why my sister was allowed to watch it every evening. Maybe school hadn't started yet for her. I remember the little lock twists that you used thumb and left side of right index finger on. They were like those purse hasps I've mentioned -- a kind of friendly bow-shaped affair. Also like my mother's double diamond ring. On the door to my room horizontal meant locked; on the door to the library vertical meant locked. I would also pretend to be bathing when I wanted to play, and so would lock the door to the library (vertical) leaving the door to the bathroom open from my room while I lolled around on the wall to wall carpet. I remember it as scratchy, which could be oddly pleasant when you were naked and getting ready for bed -- it sort of scratched a full-body itch. I think I actually might have liked lolling around on it most after a bath. I remember the carpet tacks and the soft rubbery foundation underneath it, and the peeling wall-paper near the radiators -- it was fun to pull it off since it was tough and didn't rip but peeled beautifully. I remember the bathroom tiles, and how pleasantly warm they would be if the radiator was on full tilt, the fact that its hear rolled over the floor captured by the warm tiles. I remember liking to sit on the warm tiles with my naked butt up against the bathroom door (to the library) reading, a warm and untouched bath drawn on the other side of the toilet. I could press my right toe up up against the fretwork on the radiator cage and feel how warm it was and how comfortable it was to press my toe into the arabesques and whorls. I miss that bathroom -- and bathrooms like it -- a lot.

posted by william 5:12 PM
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