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Where do we place our love? Where does it manifest itself? Are they contained in memory? How reliable is memory, then, considering our ability to interpret, alter or fictionalize individual episodes, in conjunction with the aforementioned questions? Which method, if any, of recollecting memories is the most efficient (or most truthful), in terms of writing?
Calvino says, “Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst.”
It’s only rather like it because this “psychoanalyst” isn’t paid. So there must be some ulterior motivation. Why would you listen to me and my story? Why would any reader listen to any writer? What’s there to gain?
To these rudimentary questions I offer a rudimentary answer: I think it’s a feeling not unlike love, a feeling resting upon the shoulders of Understanding, where the reader sees the writer coming to terms— maybe explicitly on the page— with the questions they’ve posed, the experiences they’re to overcome, and they find solace in this, they find engagement. And so, if I’m trying to reach this same understanding with my Memory— to understand it and, eventually, utilize it— why shouldn’t I do the same with my Reader?
And that means conversing, that means dual voices and self-conscious addressing of the reader; until we can reach some sort of understanding. So in effect I could say this is not simply a memoir, but the evolution of a memoir, wherein the Process of reaching coalescence— blending my two voices: the then, the now, the liver of the experiences and the writer of the experiences— is the chief protagonist, fighting— He must believe— for a just cause.
My supposed “cause:” To work through various forms of writing memory in order to see which best lends itself to— that catch-all word— meaning.
Won’t you come along?
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