A Quote by Natasha Trethewey
What's left is palimpsest—one memory bleeding into another, overwriting it.
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Memory is strange. Scientifically, it is not a mechanical means of repeating something. I can think a thousand times about when I broke my leg at the age of ten, but it is never the same thing which comes to mind when I think about it. My memory of this event has never been, in reality, anything except the memory of my last memory of that event. This is why I use the image of a palimpsest - something written over something partially erased - that is what memory is for me. It's not a film you play back in exactly the same way. It's like theater, with characters who appear from time to time.
When I left you, Bella, I left you bleeding. Jacob was the one to stitch you back up again. That was bound to leave its mark - on both of you.
Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war.... We all keep quiet and they try to convince us that what we've seen, what we've done, what we've learned about ourselves and about others, is an illusion, a passing nightmare. Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.
A poem is but a thought, a mere memory caught at play. From hand onto paper, bleeding thoughts emerge.
One person might be able to learn by reading, another will have a good audio memory, and another will make notes in different colored pens. I have a more multi sensory memory - I remember what I was doing when I learnt it and where I was.
During my last year of college I wrote the same ten pages over and over again. Those ten pages became the first few pages of my first novel. I can still recite the opening paragraph from memory - only now I cringe when I do it because they are - surprise! - a classic example of overwriting, in addition to being a more than a little pretentious.
One strand of psychotherapy is certainly to help relieve suffering, which is a genuine medical concern. If someone is bleeding, you want to stop the bleeding. Another medical aspect is the treatment of chronic complaints that are disabling in some way. And many of our troubles are chronic. Life is chronic. So there is a reasonable, sensible, medical side to psychotherapy.
But... when I left you, Bella, I left you bleeding. Jacob was the one to stitch you back up again. That was bound to leave it's mark - on both of you. I'm not sure those kinds of stitches dissolve on their own. I can't blame either of you for something I made necessary. I may gain forgiveness, but that doesn't let me escape the consequences.
There's something known as "memory conformity," also known as "social contagion of memory," which refers to a situation where one person's telling of a memory influences another person's account of that same experience.
Life is a velvet crowbar hitting you over the head, youre bleeding syrup amour, bleeding to death.
Memory plays tricks. Memory is another word for story, and nothing is more unreliable.
I think the relationship between memory and time is a very deep and tricky one, to tell you the truth. I don't consider memory another sense. I do consider memory that which allows us to think that time flows.
Of all the priceless objects left behind, this is what we rescue. These artifacts. Memory cues. Useless souvenirs. Nothing you could auction. The scars left from happiness.
Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. During the work, you have to be sure that you haven't left any holes, that you've captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.
I was going to be a surgeon at one point, and I remember being taught that the surgical heroes aren't the ones that can staunch the bleeding; what you want is the surgeon that doesn't cause any bleeding in the first place.
Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.
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