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, December 05, 2007

I remember how fascinated I was by the whirlpool of water going down the drain in the bathtub. I'd sit watching it all drain out. I connected the beaded chain of the plug to its image in the water once the plug was pulled, the dancing downwards pointed elongation.

I remember this experience was disturbing and even frightening when I was very young. The way opening the drain could dimple the top of the water several inches above it. The dancing dervish seemed to me like a malevolent spirit which just showed up as the water left -- which therefore could show up at will. The water seemed innocent to me, harried by the whirlpool dervish. Finally it would all be gone, but with a loud draining sound that seemed a slightly monitory echo.

Often my mother would swoop me out of the tub before I had to experience much of the whirlpool, and her counterpull into a towel and love would completely compensate for the anxiety caused by the draining water. She had power even over that.

(I remember that at my uptown grandparents, though, the water drained even faster, the whirlpool was even more pronounced, and I really didn't like taking baths there.)

posted by william 11:17 AM
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