Posts tagged: memory
Last summer
Montauk taught me
how loudly the ocean
claps after it’s heard
a good story, seen
enough nakedness.
The mouth-bite
on my inner left thigh,
the bruise from assembling
my own bed. Reminders
that storytelling is a quiet art.
It’s a lot of crashing, foaming,
waiting for the evidence to surface.
The buzzing in the backseat
during a family road-trip.
The sinking heart
of a screwed-up chemistry exam.
With sore ego, out of habit
we pull the blankets
back over our heads, and sleep
while the world waits
to be told what to do next.
Cursing and blubbering. Poets,
at some point, we are all the Emperor
on the day he looked down
to find the one truth
that refused to be fooled.
Remembrance is a culture
of vulnerability. Re-memory,
a lineage.
These words punched me straight in the gut.
Over the course of my life I have been lucky enough to meet several people (some have left, others have stuck around) with whom I have shared a connection that was recognized immediately. Soul mates, if you will. But not in the romantic, one person who was put on this earth just for me, way. Because I don’t believe in that. But more in the you are my kindred spirit, a friend, and you understand because you’ve been there too way. I think it’s the sad parts, the scars, the lonely places in our histories that tie us together more often than the happy things. It is equal parts terrifying and a huge relief to know someone before you even really know them. You know?
“A book is not company. We engage with it, argue with it, carry it around in our pockets and minds, are haunted by memories of it for years. But it doesn’t argue back, doesn’t engage, never inquires how our day has been, gives only what it wishes. Books are selfish. Everything, every word, is on their terms.
That’s what I like about them.”
—Rick Gekoski, writing in the Guardian
Future Hipsters, Remembering The Good Old Days of the Internet
This is really funny.
These are my favorite kind of books: ones that have been around long enough to gather a second story in addition to the one they contain. Sometimes when I’m studying at the library a certain book will catch my eye and I’ll spend a few minutes paging through it, wondering who else’s fingers have brushed its surface.
Emily Lopez
I agreed with this until I found something worth fixing.
True life: awkward situations.
Always thinking, “Oh shit will the professor like me?” and “Do I look cute enough for this class?”
