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everything in particular

2023-08-13

3 minute read

10 days! I have been busy. Or at least, I haven't had the energy to do this. I've been busy with return.horse, and other things. Socialising, work, etc. My mind has been racing, non-stop, all the time. I said to a friend: "Not about anything in particular". They replied: "maybe about everything in particular"

It's draining to go over the past 10 days, or go over the past at all. I'll talk about today.

I milled about in the morning, reading a little and drinking coffee. I wanted to head out early to sit at a cafe, but the day was pushing on and I was running out of time. I eventually got out just before midday. I went up to Miles End bagels for a bagel and a coffee then found an awkward spot in the carlton gardens where I ate. I wish End had more space to sit. I'd like to find a nice spot to sit for lunch at least nearby, but despite a garden to choose from I haven't quite managed. I feel a little weird on these trips out, like a weird old man. I enjoy the time alone though. Afterwards I went to the Kathleen Syme Library and returned some library books. I got out 3 more:

And stopped by the Melbourne Art Library for another return. I left with the 92nd volume of Photofile, 2013.

The last stop of the midday outing was at Kino cinemas, where I saw a complex, sad and romantic documentory: The Eternal Memory.

Chilean couple Augusto and Paulina have been together for 25 years, but Augusto was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease eight years ago. Both of them fear the day he will no longer recognize her.

Augusto Góngora was one of Chile's most prominent journalists, and he wrote a few books. One of them was called "Chile: The Forbidden Memory". He fought so hard for the right to remember the atrocities the Pinochet Dictatorship commited against the people of Chile. It feels so mean to have his own memory stripped away in his 60s. I remember the quote by Mary Ruefle:

life is much, much more than is necessary, and much, much more than any of us can bear, so we erase it or it erases us, we ourselves are an erasure of everything we have forgotten or don't know or haven't experienced, and on our deathbed, even that limited and erased "whole" becomes further diminished, if you are lucky you will remember the one word water, all others have been erased; if you are lucky you will remember one place or one person, but no one will ever, ever read on their deathbed, the whole text, intact and in order.

It's tremendous to see the love they share together. I cried a fair bit.

It made me think about photography, about documenting my life and about writing this journal. He talks about how he is in those books he writes, they become a way to remember his own identity. It's a morose reason to write now, and I'm not even sure this journal would help me remember who I am. It already feels like a dull reflection, seen through a glass darkly. Then again, the fixed nature of identity is a disputed and philosophical concept that I'm not interested in diving into here and now. I'll finish this paragraph with a little more grist for the mill: On Rejecting Narrative Identity.

about photography

I'm close to posting photos on instagram again. This week I have a number of evening tasks I'd like to tick off:

what else

Been seeing Rainer Maria Rilke quotes everywhere, especially from "letters to a young poet". Couldn't get that one from the library, settled for the poetry. Finished "Childhoods End - Arthur C Clarke" and really enjoyed it. Good sci-fi, approaches the idea and then goes far beyond it.

listening to

Supernova - Saiko

questions