“You know what I think?” she says. “That people’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They’re all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed ’em to the fire, they’re all just paper. The fire isn’t thinking ‘Oh, this is Kant,’ or ‘Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,’ or ‘Nice tits,’ while it burns. To the fire, they’re nothing but scraps of paper. It’s the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there’s no distinction — they’re all just fuel.” 

Haruki Murakami

What if memories — the lessons, the joys, the sorrows, the triumphs, the failures, the not enough, the too much, the falling apart, the falling back together, the roots, the buds, the wounds, the scar tissue — are fuel. Fuel to start and finish. Fuel to say yes and no. Fuel to be kind and connect. Fuel to keep our word and climb mountains. Fuel to build and create. Fuel for peace and truth. Fuel for justice and sanity.

Memories are wisdom. In taking stock and reflecting, in the coming together between what was, what is, and what will be, we become wise. Wisdom as fuel. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when we know better we do better. Remembering is a path to doing better. Memories are doing better fuel.

Memories are fuel to stay alive. They are roadmaps for what works and what does not. They are sustenance for our hungry selves. They are light shining into the cracks of our fears and doubts.

What I Keep Learning

The Wisdom Project

“That memories are recovered — that is, that the suppressed truths do reemerge– is the basis of whatever hope one can have for justice and a modicum of sanity in the ongoing life of communities.” — Susan Sontag

At the beginning of Susan Sontag’s essay, “The Wisdom Project,” published in her essay collection, Where the Stress Falls, she reminds us of the familiar Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” (I find the days in which we currently live so interesting sleep often escapes me.) She uses the work of Adam Zagajewski as a touchstone for a conversation about cultural memory, writing, and aesthetics.

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Diving Into a Wreck

I came to explore the wreck./ The words are purposes./ The words are maps./ I came to see the damage that was done/ and the treasures that prevail. — Adrienne Rich

Poetry as diving. Poetry as moving in and through water into the thick of memory, the murky weeds of certainty, the darkness of depth, the strangeness of impermanence, the pain of breath, the stillness of story. 

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I Remember

I remember sky/ It was blue as ink/ Or at least I think
I remember sky/ I remember snow/ Soft as feathers
Sharp as thumb tacks/ Coming down like lint — Stephen Sondheim

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. These are Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life. We can understand that those were her instructions for writing poetry as well. Sondheim’s lyrics remind me of life’s poetry. Attention, astonishment, and telling the world are at the heart of it all. A winter sky becomes something more. Memories live. Stories breathe. Grief eases. Grace embraces. The falling apart and falling together find their rhythm. He found perfect words, showing us that perfect words are possible.

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Paying Attention

The History of Memorial Day

Bill Moyers on Memorial Day

Laura Benanti singing “I Remember” from Stephen Sondheim’s Evening Primrose

“Diving Into A Wreck” by Adrienne Rich

How Susan Sontag Thought Me To Think, by A.O. Scott