Refractions

As a writer's imagination begins to respond to repeated requests for it to function on command, can I begin to expect this mysterious mechanism to perform without being subjected to the vulnerabilities of superstition?

The memories I am most often drawn to are the ones where imagination has altered the terms of reality in which they have been preserved. I chose to remember as I prefer but knowing this, cannot count on embellished remembrance for historical accuracy. When were these recollections revised? Is it simply a function of time jumping in to make history more agreeable or bearable? Is it a function of maturity? I wish my diligence in keeping journals had been more vigilant.

I am learning that when I want to take a closer look at the contents of imagination, I need to be cautious in approach. Like an eager birdwatcher stalking some rare fowl in the wilderness, I can easily frighten away the prey. I discover that if I am driven to reflection by a sense of anxiety, my access is limited to memories where this sense of anxiety might have originally been composed. This is often not suitable for an emerging narrative. It is important to remain patient & accept what I am being shown in the mind’s eye.

Recollection begins with the simple: a line of dialogue overheard in the background of a restaurant or the colour of someone’s belt. If I slowly, tentatively begin to explore what I have been shown, the frame of reference eventually widens & a context will emerge. This placement is an exciting development. It means seemingly random details might connect.

Something I experienced combines with something learned & then pulls into something overheard.

It is a braid of loose notions.


{Artwork by Montserrat Guidol}

Next Comes the P.O.V.

Where am I in the enduring memories? Am I always included in the action or has imagination co-opted this re-collection of life experienced second hand? When I reflect, superficially making certain something was actually present in real sequence, the intention is to savour the details later—in refraction, these scenes of memory appear as they do in cinema.

With an erudite imagination serving as film editor, I experience history first-hand: a backyard filled with enormous snow banks, our living room at Christmas, the upstairs hallway, the auditorium with the towering red velvet curtains filled to capacity in grade school—the recognition of place is instant. Then I see myself & immediately a feeling is re-captured. Typically, my senses are spread like a late afternoon sky, hanging in some limbo yet caught in the gentle tumble of stored emotion.

Memories are stored differently if I am ashamed to recall them. These scenes arrive suddenly, with a zap & there is no predicting their occurrence. They have a trigger, though it is often haphazard. When I suddenly recall something shaming, the same flush accompanies the memory as when it first occurred but time has diluted the intensity. I suspect imagination, operating in its most sinister mode, works in cahoots with memory in these instances. My sense of reason always comes to the rescue: it could not have been that bad.

Where is my ego in all of this painful remembering?

{Artwork by David Hochbaum}

The Chaos of Memory

'Soon, the remembered scenes would grow in vividness and depth.'
 Annie Dillard

In surveying a stream of passing, dislocated memories, the challenge arises to next pull them through the matrix of time in order to place them into some rational, chronological order. I desire to glean their most general essence; to learn the message my Unconscious mind is trying to communicate. Of all the myriad of events stored away, why do these persist?

I am not considered a visual person. In fact, I frequently struggle to describe something to a friend or family member when recapitulating a noteworthy event or someone new & memorable. I would make an appalling eye witness for I lack the ability to draw pictures with my spoken words. Yet my own personal memories are indexed with graphic details. If I am to permit my mind to run, like a slow purring engine, a picture book of flipping images flashes across the inner screen, each accompanied by its own powerful sensation. It leaves me feeling drained, as one often finds oneself after engaging a challenging person in conversation.

Dig & delve.

I remember being in my bedroom; it is small & messy. There is darkness outside but the room is still partially lit by the half-cast light which shines in through a rectangular window space. This opening has been built over the doorway, some years before when the house was used as a hotel. It was to permit ventilation in the days before artificial air but there is no longer any glass in the space, only light flowing in through the transom from the hallway which illuminates my task. I am supposed to be asleep in bed, on my way to Dreamland but instead, I am collecting books from the messy floor. Carefully, I take a pile of colourful books & having pulled back the covers of my single bed, I begin to lay them out, side by side in a tidy grid around me. It is the covers of these books which interest for I know the stories inside well. I place the books I favour closest. Once all the books have been laid out, side by side to cover the entire bed, I curl myself in the remaining space. I fall asleep surrounded.

When I analyze rationally what arises from the river of memories, rarely, almost never is it something which would elicit a laugh. It seems my process of reflection does not have a sense of humour. There is something more urgent to communicate.

{Photographs by Henri Cartier Bresson}

Lightshot

Memories are not stored in alphabetical order. I discover this after an attempt to shift focus of the mind’s eye forward or backward from an enduring scene. I manage to recall a specific detail or perhaps an event & typically there is an expansion of emotion accompanying this recollection. When I ask: “What happens next?” the scene dissolves into the undulating folds of time.

Can I hypnotize myself into flowing through memories sequentially, so that I might roll along with the coherence of the story I am trying to recount? Should I even attempt this or should I just carefully explore what remains, as a jeweler might inspect what remains of a precious stone which has been randomly fragmented?

An Observation: Scenes illuminated by sparkling sunlight have a longer shelf life than the stored memories which happen under the cover of darkness.

As I grow away from childhood, the recollections from that time—the joy & surprise of youth & all that was so easily commemorated, those images wan into the background to permit the  emergence of memories which seem threaded together with what would best be described as nostalgia. The feelings evoked within this pattern fall outside of what might be considered everyday. My mind collects the instances where the senses were somehow enlarged; the past becomes a collection of mystical expansions.

Memories float by with only the barest details to identify them; time & place are randomly co-mingled. When I catch hold of a particular memory to pull it in for closer focus, the scenes are shortened, truncated.

What is the theme of these seemingly incongruous remembrances?

{Artwork by Daniel Trindade Scheer}

Childhood Bliss — In Deconstruct

Can we re-visit childhood memories & expect to discover something we might have missed when experiencing firsthand?  My memory banks are full of such details but in general, I chose to leave them where they lie, frozen & half-forgotten. I dislike people who reminisce too much & as a writer of fiction, I have sworn off my own life as material to write through.

Still. I cannot help but wonder if  I was to undertake an exercise to flesh-out details from any given memory, whether this amplification might trigger some powerful conversation. Writers of fiction require imagination to produce entirely new instance. Like petroleum being converted into jelly. the raw material is converted invisible.

She called it mousey creeping. It always occurred in the evening when she had drank a few glasses of scotch. I would lie on the sofa next to her armchair, the one with the pillow set up against the upholstery of the cushion to provide extra support for her bad back. My arm would rest on the edge of the sofa, reaching out towards her chair & she would extinguish her cigarette & take the hand that held it, slowly & gently & began to lightly run the tips of her moon-shaped fingernails just on the surface of my young skin. I remember goose bumps & waves of relief. It was the tenderest tickling, light & slow & with my eyes closed, time suspended. I never wanted it to stop.

What were my thought when my grandmother comforted me so? As the hand that carried her three rings—a wedding band, silver & plain, the diamond & sapphire ring which went to my mother when she died & will come to me eventually. . . an ornate S-shaped silver & onyx ring purchased on a holiday in Mexico—as this careful hand traveled up & down, gentle & slight, how did I view the world in those moments of bliss?

When I am fortunate to receive a pleasurable experience, after the initial wave of recognition & warmth settles down, my first thought is—how long will this last? Anxiety takes seed; it focuses on the endurance of the giver of this pleasure. I am concerned about fairness; I worry about how I will repay this kindness.

My memories of pleasure are tinged with obligation.

{Images by Caras Ionut}

The Anchor of Reason

Inside the phantasmagoria of a churning imagination. the foibles of ego transform into something larger. It is this factory of transformation which takes subjective musings & re-works random, incomplete sentiments into language & image.

Where do all of the forgotten instances go? When an image dissolves before being worked through the loom of imagination, does it drop somewhere into the pit of an Unconscious mind, never to be revisited? Or does it simply lurk just out of conscious awareness, waiting for it's moment to return? Occasionally, I try to summon those lost scenes but having no recollection of what was inside the original instance, I anticipate the general. It is like losing the family pet & standing on the front porch calling for just any dog to return.

When we swim, letting regular thought frolic inside an ocean of possibility; this world which exists only in all that can be imagined, it is a sense of reason which anchors this process of play & discovery.

Does knowing a thing by reason limit the possibility for transformation in the world of imagination?

{Artwork by Mimmo Paladino}

The Mystery of Creation

What makes writing work? What is that essential quality which defines an effective storyteller?

When I read from an engaged place, my thinking has been caught by some detail of description which rings familiar to what sensibility understands as truth. When I happen upon some phrase which connects in this deeper manner, I'm hooked—drawn-in closer to the author's viewpoint, hoping this connection takes my understanding in a new direction. Committed, I need for this writer to affirm what I already believe yet I will loose interest if my own understanding is not validated.

Pace is important. When a writer has snared my attention, I happily join them in the journey through their words, my activated imagination whirling in creation of the subjective landscape which unites us. Curiosity propels through their artful lines; I stay with them to expand. When I lag behind, I might pull-back trust; a twinge of disappointment surfaces. I hope we will meet again. this author & I because if we have been earlier engaged, the faith in their ability to again take me to that new place sustains.

Sometimes, the writer will lose me & that earlier point of fusion, where our imaginations converged will be lost altogether, not to happen again in their story. Still, I will read on because they have awakened my mind & for this I am grateful. Like a loyal ally, I feel I still owe my trust so I read what no longer interests.

Now it is my turn. A block of time is established; I write down a date. It is from here the story will begin. Past the date, we begin to establish place, the reader & I. I want them to join me in this parcel of captured time; I want them to see what I do, to remember the details I dredge from memory.

Deeper into the interior life of a busy imagination, I lose the presence of an audience. There is a flow of image & sense memories parade in full regalia. All I can do is keep up to this energizing stream. I cannot possibly record everything shown in this place of the mind but this limitation turns out to be an advantage. Occasionally, I resonate  for I have been successful in creating a multi-dimensional landscape.

What I leave off the page sometimes vanishes immediately; other times it re-emerges & I recognize a space for its inclusion. It makes me think of perfect timing; of a lyrical spirit in Universal sequence.

{Artwork by Joan Miro}