Last night as I settled into bed, I began to review my weekend, a particularly good one in which I went skiing, saw a movie, had brunch with a friend, dinner with another friend, and attended a house-warming party. For an introvert like me, it was a pretty active few days, with plenty of highlights that I could assemble into a story whereby to shape and preserve a comfortable self-image, creating a weekend personal history that lulled me into what I expected to be a pleasant sleep.
I was wrong. Sometime between 2 and 4 a.m., I woke up, disturbed by a dream, the details of which I don’t remember, except that it was obviously inspired by an extremely trifling event that had occurred earlier in the day: a group of colleagues were talking outside of my office about a party they had attended over the weekend. One or two hours later, when I finally fell back to sleep, I was still thinking about that one small event, bothered by the fact that I hadn’t been invited to my colleague’s party, even though I wouldn’t have gone if I had been invited, and doubly bothered by the gap I perceived between my own life and the lives of my colleagues, almost all of whom are married with children and whom I apparently know so little about—whose stories I’m barely familiar with, whom I affect so imperceptibly. I felt alienated. Though my memory of the night’s remainder is faint, I have a feeling that my dreams continued to explore and develop that one small event, an event that I barely paid mind to when it occurred, but which my unconscious couldn’t let go of and invested with enough importance to disturb my sleep.
In the novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Kundera writes about how in the twentieth century the European Blackbird moved from the forests, its native habitat, into the cities. In terms of historical significance, such an event, a radical transformation in the relationship of one species to another, is far more relevant than the Israeli invasion of Palestine or the British withdrawal from India or the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, events that merely altered relationships among members of the same species. Nevertheless, you’ll not find a single history book, or many books period, that mention the exodus of the blackbirds. The exodus of the European Blackbirds is not part of Western history, not part of its self-definition.
The personal histories we construct are no different than the histories we construct of nations and continents: what we leave out is often far more revealing than what we include.
As I get older, I find myself trying again and again to recall those moments from the shadow side of my history—paths I almost took, women whom I almost made love to, actions I thought about taking but never did—the millions of stories that have never been told, blocked now by the surface events of my life, memories concealed by memories. I long to go back to a time that existed before realization, to the woman whose promise was never tarnished by prolonged interaction, to once again be worthy of a grace I earlier failed to recognize, to find the treasure and return to innocence, to a time before I knew disappointment or satisfaction, before history, to take up space once more in the countless zones that the light never landed on.
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9 comments:
mm !
You sound sad, not taking the right choices, perhaps ?
Do you ever read an ornothology book ? You would be surprise what you can find in there.
Is it kundera specified what type of blackbirds ? There are 5 different species of Blackbirds on Europe and 26 species more all over american continent. Did you know that ?
I know that is not your point, history is not base in what happens to birds,just humans, we are the kings of this planet, the only intelligent animal, (not agree with this), so how we destroy animals habitat and change their habits is not important to human race, just for some of us.
So why to write about it ? Only for a ornithologist that would be important, no ? Perhaps to kundera, too ?
No, I've never read an ornithology book. But it sounds interesting. Any specific ones you'd suggest?
You wrote:
"So why to write about it ? Only for a ornithologist that would be important, no ? Perhaps to kundera, too ?"
Well, why I'M writing about it should become clear in Part Two, if I get around to it. But it has something to do with the way desire erases boundaries, opens us up to the world beyond the grand narrative, etc.
As to why Kundera or others might write about it is because it plays a crucial role, more crucial than our interaction with other races probably, in creating our environment. That IS important to the human race, obviously, and important to human history. And I'm not sure if you're serious in saying that we are the "kings of the planet, and the "only intelligent animal". I'm guessing you're not. As we all know, ants and cockroaches are the kings of this planet. ;}
Your last paragraph is poetry--the shadow side of my history...to go back to the woman whose promise was never tarnished by prolonged interaction. Wow.
While reading your post, I was watching (for the 2nd time) *Once*, the Irish film about a guy who plays his guitar on the street for money and meets a Czech girl. They spend about a week together, but never consummate the relationship sexually; instead it is consummated through the music they make together.
In many ways it's about the history which will not be told, the event that doesn't fit into the prescribed personal history scaffolding: birth, graduations, marriage, 1st job, children, promotions, retirement, death. But the events are transcendent, beautiful, life-changing.
When I read your last paragraph (and this may or may not be what you are getting at), I think of the constructed nature of desire and motivation.
We feel powerful emotions when we have an argument with our fathers, but we would never in a million years care about what that man thought or said if we met him in a bar. In fact we wouldn't meet him, wouldn't ever know him.
We feel nothing for the student whose father has died or the man wearing a spiderman costume on the bus. We could but the constructs of our live channels our energies and protects us from over-extension.
In a new world we might fall in love with the student, we might become best friends with the man on the bus. Similar to Stephen King's the *Stand* when multiple "impossible" relationships are created because they are the few survivors of the super flu bug. Their previous desires and motivations have been erased by the new social reality. They have been reborn.
What I'm left wondering is how to access just a bit of that rebirth without an epidemic.
"Once", huh? It sounds interesting. I googled it and became even more interested.
You wrote:
"When I read your last paragraph (and this may or may not be what you are getting at), I think of the constructed nature of desire and motivation."
That's kinda where I was going, but I fear that if I say too much about where I was going I'll lose my motivation for Part II. LOL. Actually, though, what you stated about how the constructs of our lives narrow and protect us from over protection gives me some new ideas about the same theme (and also confuses me a bit). But in a nutshell, I'd like to connect what I've written here to the study I quoted in the prior post about memory and the link to creativity and turning off the memory-filter, and how consummation (both literally and figuratively and on an individual and public level) works as another kind of filter, a necessary filter that simultaneously impedes creativity and self-knowledge while enhancing locality and cohesion, etc.....
Your last question is a tantalizing one. You're thinking on a social scale, but, individually, the same question could be asked about how to access that rebirth, how to turn off the filter, and stave off madness.
You write beautifully.
Off course , any cockroach can be smarter than any US american, We ALL KNOW THAT !
Thanks SometimesLisa. Nice to see you again in the blogosphere--for however brief a stay. :)
just so you know I am waiting for part two.
You were in my last dream as I woke up this morning. We were catching a flight somewhere but you hadn't eaten so we left the airport to find something to eat. We ran into one of my students and eventually you decided you didn't want anything to eat. It was odd and seemingly devoid of any interesting symbolism.
I don't even remember, precisely, what I meant to say in part II--but I'll have to post something. Any topic suggestions?
Yeah, that sounds like a fairly trivial dream. Did we catch the plane? Was it going to Shangri La or any place interesting? If I have any say in it, I'll try to do something more dramatic the next time I appear in your dreams.
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