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

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I remember Yossi falling down the stairs at Locke Street. They were wooden stairs, the stairs from the second floor landing, the stairs that took you from the living floor of our apartment down to the outside. Somehow they were of a different quality than the steps to the upstairs (the sleeping floor, where the bedrooms are)--darker, scarier. Probably we weren't allowed to go down them ourselves, since they led to the front door. The stairs to the third floor were safe and fine, had a landing of their own and ugly green-patterned wallpaper that I once improved with some crayon--though I was not encouraged in that pursuit. But the dogs would tumble down those lower steps every day when the mail came, roaring and barking hysterically at the postman. You would never have thought them so old, such old dogs, 10 and 14 or so, the way that they barked, passionately, with gusto, with purpose. I remember Yossi falling down those stairs right onto his face, remember feeling terrified about it--when he stood up his face was all bloody and my mother was clearly frightened. He'd fallen right onto his face, never blocked his fall with his hands. It's the first of three memories of his falling on his face, right onto his mouth, bloodying himself because his body couldn't seem to get that that's what hands are for: to protect your face.

posted by Rosasharn 11:23 AM
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