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, December 20, 2010

I remember books I read in fourth grade because books were so precious in Israel: Little Women and Little Men and The Swiss Family Robinson and Dr. Doolittle (and from my Lipincott reader which I had brought from school and which struck me as utterly insufficient, The Walrus and the Carpenter and Riki Tiki Tavi) and The Little Princess and National Velvet and Black Beauty and The Secret Garden and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or maybe I don't remember them: I'm sure I had access to Miri's library, and I don't remember what I borrowed from her, only what my extended family sent me. I remember writing in the little red Record book my parents gave me as a diary that year. I remember drawing a map, in color, of our first apartment, the little place on Rechov Haportzim, in Katamon. I don't remember learning how, but I did learn to crochet in school that year, and I remember that it was hard for me. With great difficulty, I made an ugly piece of uneven pink crochet-work, but it was sufficient to get a passing grade on the assignment. And later I improved. I also made a beautiful hand puppet boy, with yellow yarn hair and embroidered features, whom I named Dan. I remember stitching his yarn curls into his fabric head, one by one. I loved making him.

posted by Rosasharn 11:39 PM
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