We were telling each other a lot of stories from childhood with reference to Vasudev's work. It's turned out to be quite a treat that his exhibition is called Recollections, Reconnections. I found an old piece that I wrote during a workshop years ago and reworked it all except the first line.
on Memory
Memories are most treacherous things.
No memory is whole.
They are all bits and pieces, brushed on by feeling, and feeling never stops. And sometimes we forget what we remember, and remake what we’ve forgotten in the remarkable shape of what must have been. And we forget our inventions, or if we invented anything at all because, after all, all memories are true.
And often, memories are all that’s left behind and true or otherwise, they are real, no?
I woke up in a village. Big fields, small farmers, distant trees, clear skies, dirt roads, clean air, common wells, coal ovens, superstitions, robbermen, and lanterns in the night time. It is nothing like that anymore.
My father says I couldn’t possibly remember anything. Impossible, let alone improbable, for a two year old to retain such early sensory experiences. But he never lived there. My mother lived there, and she says nothing.
Some things happen to you before you learn to remember. Leaves, mud, sunshine, dogs barking, cows calling, fruit falling, real darkness, rainstorms, and being alone, buoyed up by the beat of my little feet running, running, endlessly running.
And there is love here somewhere, no? Of the things I've seen and sensed. Of my first burning. Of my mother's fingers. Of being awake. Love is the first thing I remember. I couldn’t tell you anything about it, but it is faithful. It is whole.
on Memory
Memories are most treacherous things.
No memory is whole.
They are all bits and pieces, brushed on by feeling, and feeling never stops. And sometimes we forget what we remember, and remake what we’ve forgotten in the remarkable shape of what must have been. And we forget our inventions, or if we invented anything at all because, after all, all memories are true.
And often, memories are all that’s left behind and true or otherwise, they are real, no?
I woke up in a village. Big fields, small farmers, distant trees, clear skies, dirt roads, clean air, common wells, coal ovens, superstitions, robbermen, and lanterns in the night time. It is nothing like that anymore.
My father says I couldn’t possibly remember anything. Impossible, let alone improbable, for a two year old to retain such early sensory experiences. But he never lived there. My mother lived there, and she says nothing.
Some things happen to you before you learn to remember. Leaves, mud, sunshine, dogs barking, cows calling, fruit falling, real darkness, rainstorms, and being alone, buoyed up by the beat of my little feet running, running, endlessly running.
And there is love here somewhere, no? Of the things I've seen and sensed. Of my first burning. Of my mother's fingers. Of being awake. Love is the first thing I remember. I couldn’t tell you anything about it, but it is faithful. It is whole.
The whole in your heart.
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