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

Friday, December 26, 2003

I remember spending Christmas one year in Stormville; I must have been seven or eight. The kids all stayed with the Herings in their house. They had a tree, despite the fact that they were more Jewish than Christian. We taped our socks to the mantle, I had no idea why. I was told that they would be filled with treats (or coal, if I'd been bad); this was the first I'd heard about that. I wished I'd worn more capacious socks. I remember my black nylon sock didn't look like it would hold more than a Hershey's kiss or two. But no one had very big socks anyhow. None of this seemed a big deal to me. I was amazed, and felt what you were supposed to feel, the next morning when my sock had been replaced by a giant Christmas stocking full of good things. I think this was the only Christmas I really shared in as a kid, and it was magical. (I think there were gifts too, but I don't remember those.)

posted by william 8:04 AM
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