in the theater of triggered memory
It was a warm evening. Running along the concrete sidewalk bordering Queen street last night, a truck pulled out of a driveway just ahead of me. The driveway protruded from between two low stone walls and the exit was blind until the driver nosed out into the sidewalk. He came from a garage in the apartment building, and the door hadn’t yet shut, giving the truck an unnatural illumination from behind, a warm glow that contrasted with the sharp-edged streetlight reflecting off the hood. He paused, looked both ways, and turned left.
I ran across the mouth of the driveway. In that instant, before I realized it, I thought about the house at the bottom of the street in Vence. Quickly, quickly–stucco walls and heavy wood gates, a monolithic frame, open sometimes, the older son’s name Vincent, ping pong table in the basement, parents’ friends, dinner parties with couscous and veal, dimming the long-wearing light of summer, warm swims in the heated pool in the evening, white tiles and chlorine, grasping the rounded concrete of the edge, a soft glow from the submerged lights–there it is. The connection.
Later in the run I came to another intersection at the same time as a car turning right. I ran behind it out of courtesy and the car sped off, and in doing so I felt the warm breath of exhaust against my lower legs and smelled the familiar aroma of diesel fuel. And again, before I caught myself–driving in the long tunnel of the Périphérique (beltline) in rush hour around Paris two summers ago, window down against Aaron’s protestations but keyed up for the experience of driving in Europe and needing to experience firsthand the environs of the car.
Sometimes I feel like I need two lifetimes, one to experience and one to trace the patterns of memory, in both myself and others.
Que veux-tu que je fasse avec ces émotions, Seigneur? Tu me les a donnés pour une raison, je n’ai aucun doute, mais laquelle? Ça a produit une telle effet dans mon coeur. J’ai du difficulté à croire qu’ils sont inutiles, que j’ai vécu là-bas and ces choses m’attirent tant pour nulle raison. Amène-moi, pas à pas. Je Te fais confiance.
There you go again, praying in that secret language…
;o)