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

Monday, July 14, 2008

I remember a big mauve denim dress with large, round pockets, a high neck, and wide shoulder straps that my mother wore one Friday night when I was very small. I remember it because at the time I supposed she might be pregnant again--I associated that dress with her being pregnant--so I must have remembered her wearing it when she was pregnant with my brother, who is 20 months younger. But I was wrong. It wasn't the only time I wished there might be a third, but there never was.

posted by Rosasharn 5:40 PM
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