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

Thursday, June 02, 2005

I remember how cold our floor felt on coming home after a long vacation, how tall and dark the doors, how steep the staircase, how black the fans. These drew a line between home and other houses or hotels (for some reason, everywhere else seemed to have smaller, lighter fittings, and of course, everywhere else was usually warmer), so there was some excitement in returning -- a kind of recognition, in anticipating the mild shock of cold under feet, the mild surprise when opening the doors and looking at the ceilings. But along with that was the mild mustiness, which was also a surprise, and not something that was permanent or characterized the house like the other things did. And just as the air grew fresh quickly, the doors grew smaller and the floor warmer overnight, without our noticing it. I remember thinking once that I should consciously try to notice those things the next morning, but I couldn't.

posted by sravana 8:07 AM
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