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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.
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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, September 29, 2006
I remember the needle on my light meter (in my Honeywell Pentax). I remember that if I wasn't sure that it was working right, that the batteries were working, I could radically decrease the f-stop or the shutter speed, and then the needle would shoot down towards the minus sign in the view-finder, like a gull striking a fish. When the camera was off the needle would be just below the acceptable range, so I really noticed when it jerked downward so hard. It moved like something living, and it did so to tell me about the difference between the light I could see and the light it could record. Its message was urgent and eager. We were in it together.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
I remember my yellow jack-in-the-box. I remember it from the one time I played with it. This was either at my pediatrician's, Dr. Steffy's, office, or at my uptown grandmother's house, which was a couple of blocks away from her office. Both my grandmother's apartment and Dr. Steffy's office were old Washington Heights pre-War buildings, and they shared an ambiance. Dr. Steffy's office struck me as an apartment more than an office, which was unusual for me, since I always believed what designers wanted me to believe about interiors. Dr. Steffy had a waiting room, a consulting room, and a room with the instruments where she'd give you shots and listen to your lungs. The consulting room was what I am now unable to distinguish from my grandmother's house when I try to picture where the jack-in-the-box sprung open and terrified me. I think it shocked me away from feeling secure where I was -- for an instant I could have been anywhere, even the 93rd street sandbox where I'd sift sand. Somehow I thought the jack-in-the-box would be like my sifter and pail. But it wasn't.
Monday, September 25, 2006
I remember driving to school with Jane, one of my kindergarden teachers. She would leave her little boy (Adam?) with my parents, who took him to his school, and she would pick me up and take me to school with her. I think my mother got him in the afternoon and she would pick him up when she dropped me at home. I remember her Birkenstocks, her feet in those sandals. I thought the shoes so ugly, could not understand why she wore them, but this was not a question to ask. I remember her feet on the pedals. I sat in the front seat and watched every part of her driving. I hypothesized that she put the indicator on, but that somehow the car turned it off automatically. I didn't know how the car could know we had turned, but I never once saw her turn the signal off, so that must have been it. I was pretty sure which pedal made us go and which made us stop, but I could never be positive, for I couldn't understand the third pedal, and not knowing about the clutch threw me off. I looked out the window so much, learned my way to school more or less, so that even now when I drive in Allston, I feel a residual pride at recognizing the houses, the corners, the way.
Mostly we listened to the radio or were quiet, but sometimes we sang on the way to school. Jane was a terrific storyteller, a dramatic storyteller, and my favorite part of my kindergarden day had been when they darkened the room and we sat on the big rug, and Jane alone took the stage and told and acted out the Goosegirl or whatever fairytale she might. But I don't remember Jane telling stories while we drove. I remember her teaching me a hard but pleasing song that I can't now remember. I remember singing "Miss Mary Mack" and liking the silver buttons just fine, but worrying about the black dress and the mother's displeasure when Mary broke that comb. I enjoyed singing with Jane, and, though I was never convinced that it was a pretty song, I was happy to sing it--better than not singing. One day she asked me which was my favorite song, and I wasn't sure, but I sang "Esa Aynai." And I remember one morning Jane came to pick me up dressed in very fancy clothing--a shiny, formal black or black-burgundy dress like women wore in movies. She looked terribly wrong for a school day. I could see she was troubled, possibly she had been wearing those clothes all night, and crying, and my mother soothed her before we left for school.
Friday, September 22, 2006
I remember the street performers in Harvard Square. Going to see the jugglers, magicians, acrobats, and hucksters was a big deal; I'd get dressed up (dress, tights, mary janes) just as if we were going to a fine or formal evening affair. I remember the rhythm of their patter, the young men's edgy charm, the delicious possibility of being singled out, the thrill of staying up late and of watching the amazing feats: they kept so many pins in the air. He swallowed the torch again! I remember sitting in the bathroom by myself, days after, still humming their silly songs, "If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake."
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
I remember walking the narrow ways of the Old City up to Shaar Yafo to catch my bus to school. Often I walked with my brother to get the bus, so maybe I'm remembering walking home from the bus stop? Sometimes I must have walked alone, though, for I remember going from the top of the Jewish Quarter, where we lived, through the streets that divided the Muslim Quarter on one side and the Armenian Quarter on the other out to the ring road that led to Jaffa Gate. I remember the stains on the walls, the occasional whiff of urine (which didn't bother me, felt recognizable and familiar), the garbage, newspapers, that sometimes collected in the corners (which did bother me--I would erase them in my mind, but not touch them lest they were a hefetz hashud--a suspicious object). The streets were walled--that is, the Jerusalem stone buildings, the 2 or 3 storey homes that lined the pedestrian and donkey-cart walkways [not paths, not roads, more like stone-paved alleys?--but we'll call them streets] came straight down to the street, lined the street, walled off the street--so the sound of footsteps bounced around, echoing forward. I remember hearing the sound of approaching feet, and guessing the height and gender of the man or woman walking, and carefully timing my steps to match his or hers, changing the rhythm of my gait to fall in with whoever was coming or going.
I remember coming home from school to our apartment and knowing that my brother was in the house somewhere, and knowing that he was hiding, and searching for him. I remember calling to him, "Yossi, come out, please don't boo me. Please come out. Don't boo me." But he would never come out, and I could not find him, and eventually I would give up looking. "BOOO!" he would shout, as he jumped out of his hiding place. No matter what I did to steel myself, I would always jump, startled, terrified.
I remember feeling the perfection of our courtyard. Perfectly symmetrical--two ground floor apartments, and two upstairs apartments, all with outdoor entrances, a big square court in the center, and terraces outiside the upper entraces. I remember the lemon tree growing in the pot on the terrace outside our door, its pungent flowers and impressive green lemons. I remember the beautiful purple-blue, magenta-veined morning glory flowers that blossomed up along the steps and over to the entry of the apartment. I remember hanging clean laundry on the umbrella-style clothes-lines that stood on the wide part of the terrace outside the window to my parents' bedroom. I could smell it from the small window seat inside. The smell was the smell of fresh field, the scent that brought Jacob's blessing out of Isaac.
And I remember the day that someone left an empty milk carton on the steps to our courtyard, and I was afraid to go in, afraid to go near, could not make myself even step up to the gate and buzz up to my brother. I don't remember if I had a neighbor call the police or simply waited outside for my parents to come home. Was it a hefetz hashud? Had anyone checked it out? Two bombs went off or were destroyed in controlled explosions down the street from my school that year--we could hear them from the playground, from inside our classroom. Whether the police detonated them or whether they went off by themselves, the noise was so violent we had no question as to its origin. The milk carton, though, was just litter.
I remember Tommy Hoge counting by twos. I think we were counting pennies. I didn't understand what he was doing, but when he showed me it made sense, and was so much more fun and efficient than the prosaic way that I thought you had to count.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
I remember taking the public buses to school in Jerusalem—no. 3 or no. 20. I remember that there were the new buses, with buttons you pressed to request the next stop, and the older buses, which had a pull-string running along above the windows. I couldn’t reach the string, though I could reach the buttons, and I remember sitting on an older bus with increasing anxiety as we got closer and closer to the center of town and nobody rang the bell, debating with myself which grown up to ask to pull the string for me. And I remember hearing American pop music on the buses—music I never listened to at home because my father played only classical on the radio—songs like “Morning Train” and “Brass in Pocket.”
I remember that in two-person Ghost, g loses because your opponent will say h and then the only words to follow are all odd-numbered: ghost, or (as my inadequate cleverness made me discover) ghastly or ghastlily or ghastliness.
L also loses, since your opponent will force you into llama.
Friday, September 15, 2006
I remember that my father never got tired of this joke: we'd asked him about doing something or going somewhere, and he would reply "'No,' he explained."
Or maybe that should be, "he would reply, "'"No," he explained,'."
I remember learning the word "impossible" from my father. That is, I remember his way of replying "Impossible!" when he doubted a claim someone was making. My father always said it with good humor, so it had for me the tone of absolute but genial, smiling authority. He knew when something was impossible, so it was just a matter of knowledge, not of demand, and he was serenely in sync with knowledge.
I liked the sense the word gave me of the truth being both easy and uncompromising. It was his word: the truth was as authoritative as my father, and deep down as kind. I learned impossible before possible, which struck me as a surprising word when I did come to learn it. It opened a whole new world for me, but one that was maybe not quite so secure.
Monday, September 11, 2006
I remember that the days after September 11 there were no planes in the skies except the odd formation of fighters, and how subtly different that was, as though the gods had left and the skies were now empty of the human presence they sponsored, or that sponsored them. But I remember that everyone drove very slowly and courteously, which altered but neither intensified nor depleted the human presence on the ground.
For a week or so there was no road rage. I remember that everyone knew what everyone else was thinking as they drove, that day and in the days that followed. And that it was as if we were all trying to slow down, to temper and moderate the speed of the planes after the fact, by a kind of body English, decelerate the rate of deceleration.
I remember being haunted for months, replaying the attacks, by not knowing where to place myself mentally: in the interior of the plane? In the buildings? Those two interiors, two spaces, which were (like all spaces) so external to each other: from which one could I cope with what had happened as I tried to imagine the experience? The World Trade Center, as seen from the planes, was a sheet of glass. Its exterior had no connection with the lobbies and offices that I'd once seen. Or the planes, as seen from the twin towers were streamlined metal. Not a place of seats and tray-tables and and lavatories. How could those spaces collapse into each other, or rather annihilate each other? What point of view could I imagine it from, since any point of view was absolutely external to the others?
At least knowing what people in the other cars were thinking made it possible to remember another relation between spaces: each of us knowing what was going on in the sacred precinct of another person's little sheltered place -- even the interior of a car -- and (for a very brief period) respecting it wholly.
Friday, September 08, 2006
I remember that there were two kinds of waterfountains in the park -- older, rougher concrete ones with lots of little pebbles mixed in, and newer sleeker cement ones: just the cement, no concrete. The older ones had larger spouts, the newer ones again seemed more modern because their spouts were smaller, more tapered, more advanced, less like a shotgun, more like a ray-gun. Although I didn't make the connection at the time (perhaps because these two ways of shaping the outside environment -- especially of the park -- may have seemed like natural kinds to me, eternal types) I remember too that park benches were of both kinds of material. The older ones were concrete and had larger slats; the newer ones cement, more rounded (like the water fountains), and with thinner slats, more stream-lined bolts, painted a darker khaki green.
Friday, September 01, 2006
I remember "Breakfast time is here! Let's spread a little Skippy cheer!" And the youngest child in the commercial outdoing its mother's verve in putting healthy Skippy on anything by lisping "Even on bananas!" to which she agrees (or maybe it's the announcer who does).
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