{"id":19621,"date":"2017-09-22T13:27:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T17:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19621"},"modified":"2017-09-22T14:25:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T18:25:42","slug":"i-remember-therefore-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/i-remember-therefore-i-am\/","title":{"rendered":"I Remember, Therefore I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Self-Portrait,” by Alyssa L. Miller; found it on Flickr<\/a>, and use it here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!) The glib “if someone looks to their right, they’re probably lying” trick, it turns out, is not as true as was once thought. Finer-tuned studies, especially mapping what the brain is doing when one’s eyes move in a given direction; looking up and to the left, as the photographer apparently was for this photo, is commonly associated with remembering visual images. Now, this photo was taken in 2009: if I contacted the photographer and asked her about the circumstances, odds are she wouldn’t remember if, back then, she was remembering any image in particular — but in the present, while thinking about which photo I was referring to, then, <\/em>then she might look up and to the left.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Memory, and time, both immaterial, are rivers with no banks, and constantly merging. Both escape our will, though we depend on them. Measured, but measured by whom or by what? The one is inside, the other, outside, or so it seems, but is that true? Time seems also buried deep in us, but where? Memory is right here, in the head, but it can exit, abandon the head, leave it behind, disappear. Memory, a sanctuary of infinite patience.<\/p>\n

Is memory produced by us, or is it us? Our identity is very likely whatever our memory decides to retain. But let’s not presume that memory is a storage room. It’s not a tool for being able to think, it’s thinking, before thinking. It also makes an (apparently) simple thing like crossing the room, possible. It’s impossible to separate it from what it remembers…<\/p>\n

We can admit that memory resurrects the dead, but these remain within their world, not ours. The universe covers the whole, a warm blanket.<\/p>\n

But this memory is the glue that keeps the universe as one: although immaterial, it makes being possible, it is being. If an idea didn’t remember to think, it wouldn’t be. If a chair wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be tomorrow. If I didn’t remember that I am, I won’t be. We can also say that the universe is itself the glue that keeps it going, therefore it is memory in action and in essence, in becoming and in being. Because it remembers itself, it exists. Because it exists, it remembers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Etel Adnan[no canonical source online, but quoted in the reliable brain pickings<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized stanza):<\/p>\n

Passing Along<\/strong><\/p>\n

People who walk by carry something so light
\nthat no one can tell what it is. I know that burden,
\nlift it carefully from them and take it away
\nas they go on walking toward the sky.<\/span><\/p>\n

Waiting here still I cherish whatever they find—
\nmiles of lupine ghosting the hills,
\nan accurate bird whetting its call
\nbeyond the hedgerows where they disappear.<\/span><\/p>\n

“All I ask,” my mother said, “no matter the years<\/em>
\n and the life we have, is that when you leave<\/em>
\n you turn and wave.” That was long ago.<\/em>
\n I like to remember—I turn, I wave.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(William Stafford [again, no canonical source online; quoted in Artful Dodge<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Morning in a New Land<\/strong><\/p>\n

In trees still dripping night some nameless birds
\nWoke, shook out their arrowy wings, and sang,
\nSlowly, like finches sifting through a dream.
\nThe pink sun fell, like glass, into the fields.
\nTwo chestnuts, and a dapple gray,
\nTheir shoulders wet with light, their dark hair streaming,
\nClimbed the hill. The last mist fell away,<\/p>\n

And under the trees, beyond time’s brittle drift,
\nI stood like Adam in his lonely garden
\nOn that first morning, shaken out of sleep,
\nRubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,
\nLike tissue on some vast, incredible gift.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.<\/p>\n

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Herman Hesse [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That’s part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads – at least that’s where I imagine it—there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live forever in your own private library.<\/p>\n

(Haruki Murakami [source<\/span><\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Shock and Awe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tightened jaw, I did not love.
\nFlashback of myself jerked about,
\nlegs high above my head, men
\nlaughing, I came to sea drifts,
\nmovement and crashing. I found I am
\nnot so far from God exploding.
\nGifting, a friend once said, is why we live.
\nSeven storks still and white on a gold lake.
\nMy lazy eye glances back to that original
\nsplit, myself ?high above myself.
\nWhiplashed into forgetting, I didn’t know
\nhours from minutes. I was hypervigilant for
\ncatastrophes. My head raging then numb.
\nThe early garden bare, and now,
\nshocked with sudden memory,
\nI return to changing sky hues,
\nblooms of lilac bursting along sidewalks.
\nLazy in the grass, I free myself of guilt,
\nimagine musicians in the park, us overcoming
\nourselves. My eyes open before stars.
\nHoly these leaves, these skies.
\nWhat is torn opens for the light<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sheryl Luna [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Self-Portrait,” by Alyssa L. Miller; found it on Flickr, and use it here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!) The glib “if someone looks to their right, they’re probably lying” trick, it turns out, is not as true as was once thought. Finer-tuned studies, especially mapping what the brain is doing when one’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Haruki Murakami, Mary Oliver, Herman Hesse, et al., on looking to your memory to find your self: I Remember, Therefore I Am","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[61,595,1345,1754,1988,4077,4590,4591,4592],"class_list":{"0":"post-19621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-memory","14":"tag-mary-oliver","15":"tag-william-stafford","16":"tag-herman-hesse","17":"tag-haruki-murakami","18":"tag-existence","19":"tag-etel-adnan","20":"tag-windows-of-the-soul","21":"tag-sheryl-luna","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/selfportrait_alyssalmiller_thumb.jpg?fit=640%2C425&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-56t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19621"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19632,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19621\/revisions\/19632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}