Memory’s Needle
“Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind.” (Virginia Woolf, Orlando, 1928)
Memories are strange, fluid, often neither chronological nor linear. As Woolf suggests, remembering an event or person in your past is not static; it navigates between a present and several pasts and its truth is in the moment of remembering. Anyone who attempts to write a memoir understands just how disconcerting and sometimes frightening that act can be. These feelings are exacerbated in times of stress.
I have been struck by the reticence of most contemporary writers to write about the years of COVID-19. This is why I found Jodi Picoult’s recent novel, Wish You Were Here, so striking and so brave. The novel shares some features of science fiction in its dream travel (not really time travel but similar), but it is not science fiction. Picoult captures that powerful feeling that so many of us are experiencing in these COVID times—a questioning of the reality of the world around us, a feeling that something else must be true, some place else must be real.
Superimposed on the pandemic disequilibrium is that other great humanitarian crisis of our time—Putin’s war in Ukraine. My pain in digesting this news is exacerbated by a recognition that I did not pay enough attention to what happened in Chechnya, Syria and Crimea. I see the current scenes of destruction from Kyiv, Mariupol, and Bucha, but memory brings back shadows of Grozny in Chechnya, Aleppo in Syria and the Gori district of Georgia. I wonder what literature and memoir will be written by those who survived these destructions. What will those creators remember? Will they need to create their own travel to their own Galapagos to heal? How will they allow memory to “needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither” and in so doing provide meaning out of these experiences. I both dread and look forward to remembering with them.
Poignant powerful words and beautifully written
Thanks so much, Libby.
Yes memories are different for many of us. You captured this well in your post.
Those memories become a filter through which we see the world–not just the past but the present and future.
So much to relate to here.
Thanks.
Very helpful insights as one undergoes this needling process. Thank you
Thanks
You nudged my memory of how I paid too little attention to Chechnya, Crimea, Syria – even as I interacted with Syrian refugees during stays in Paris and Berlin. I didn’t ask the questions that I knew would have hard-to/hear answers. Thanks for this beautiful and thought-provoking writing.
What a thoughtful post! The metaphor of memory’s needle recalled to me acutely a poem I have always loved by the 19th century Austrian poet (novelist, etc), Hugo von Hofmannsthal. While it’s not long, I hesitate to include it here lest I take up too much space…well, sorry!, here it is:
Some of course. . .
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Certainly some must die below,
where the heavy oars of the ships scrape,
others live above at the rudder,
knowing the flight of birds and the countries of the stars.
Some always lie with heavy limbs
at the roots of confused life,
others have their chairs set
at the sibyls, the queens,
and there they sit as if at home, with
light heads and light hands.
But a shadow falls from that life
into the other lives,
and the light ones are
bound to the heavy ones as to air and earth: I cannot dismiss the
weariness of completely forgotten peoples
from my lids,
nor keep them away from the terrified soul
Silent falling of distant stars.
Many destinies weave alongside mine,
existence plays them all in confusion,
and my part is more than this life’s
slender flame or narrow lyre.
1895, translation by Fritz Stavenhagen
https://www-deutschelyrik-de.translate.goog/manche-freilich-1895.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Beautiful poem. Memory is such a trickster and so powerful in our understanding our own reality and we hope others.
That needle of memory can sometimes be very sharp, pricking my heart with people who are here and those who are not. Tears spring from almost forgotten voices and loves. But they are never completely forgotten. A wedding celebration or a lovely poem or a hug in passing remind me of the joys among sharp memories.