Realities, and the death of memories
At what point does my view of the world differ from any one other? When is the “B” that I see, in fact an “A”? Or a “D”? But most importantly, is this “B” of mine nothing but a raging case of reverie, or is it truly a valid way of interpreting the world around me? Is any of my reality made of fiction? If all of it is, what exactly would be “real”? What is the right way for one’s self to exist? Is your experience through your own eyes more or less important than on the eyes of someone other? Is any one’s experience biased? Enough not to be trusted? Is it even possible to exist without judgement? Without an “authorial” vision of the world?
What I know and can be certain of, is that my needs lead my life to a constant state of nebulous non-fiction. I’m unable to see anyone or thing for what they truly are supposed to be. All I see is my perception of any other “thing”. They’re all things, you’re all things, no matter what you are. Everything is an idea as potential, is real only in a reality I can control; one I can look down as solitary god, with no divided powers on my shoulders. I write, and only in writing can me or anything else exist true.
”You should watch ‘Vase de Noces’,” I wrote in a letter I’m yet to send. “Maybe you can help me understand why that movie exists, since it’s riddled with that which only ‘the few’ you’re included in, seem entitled to appreciate. It is the ‘Pig fucking movie’ you’ve probably heard about at some point.
“Having watched it, though, I don’t find it quite as interesting as the DVD extras. In them is a documentary called ‘Of pigs and men’, that features a ‘making of’ and, possibly, a reason why, again, for the existence of such a thing. It’s a relatively hard video to get a hold of, but I’ve managed in my days. Problem is that it is completely in German, and I don’t understand much of that language. More than that, no German-English-speaking body seems to have had the interest of translating and subtitling the movie, and I’m afraid the potential for such a natural blessing to exist is close to null. So, here I am pondering of a more philosophical way of understanding [the] why.
“What I gather is that, if you have watched ‘Vase de Noces’, it’s unavoidable to question ‘why’. Why it exists, why it circulates, why someone felt the need to kill newborn piglets and boil feces to drink and put it in a movie; why someone dreamt that, thought that, written it down, directed, acted, produced, wrote a fucking score for, desired to make it and make it public. BUT, surprisingly enough, I also don’t think anyone actually wants an answer.
“Ignorance is a sort of freedom in this context, how I see it. Things like that movie are supposed to be pointed and laughed at, ridiculed, bullied into oblivion. It is wrong, depraved, it should not exist. That’s the common idea; it—is—crazy; it’s mindless, insane, and should remain like that. Because if for the opposite, the thought is just terrifying.
“What if they have a valid reason? What if they can help it make sense to you? What if you start thinking like them, in agreement? To understand the crazy is to become the crazy yourself. If you fail to understand the insane, you’re free to keep your sanity. Conspiracy theorists, right?
“But, there’s something also that’s undeniable. There’s more than one reality in this world, more than one understanding. If from afar all heads look the same, up close we each cultivate individuality in a manner of our own, and perception different from even our closest of peers. That being said, though, who’s right? And the scariest of all,
What do memories look like? They smell, they have texture, colors, an all exclusive kind of breeze, but what exactly do they look like? What is their shape? I came to realize not long ago that shape is the most important part of a memory, for only through it, we can identify and apprehend it, —like the body to a person,— same with telling its current state; for I too realized then, that memories can die.
And I don’t mean die as entering the comfortable deathbed of oblivion, but die as something that before lived like any other breathing thing. Die and show carcass, lose its soul, the vital power. Die and stay, sometimes, intact like an open coffin funeral, like trees you know won’t grow no more.
This Junius, I wrote a yet to be published poem called “Casa de vovó” or, “Grandma’s house”. I wrote it just a few minutes after experiencing the immense dread of facing the empty shell of a dead memory. That night, I had visited what used to be the main of my grandmother’s houses, and the last one to have served her before the excruciating day of her demise. I didn’t enter it, but nobody else was in there. From outside, I captured the signs of abandonment that rend that place into nothing but a sad semblance of its former self.
The before happily-yellow gate was now rusty and oxblood, staining my fingertips. The tinted white, custom-order eucalyptus double-door was torn and bent, moldy at the extremes; and the ceramic floor that held the worn-out marks of so many familiar steps that once had come and gone, didn’t quite represent much under the orangish light from the streetlamp outside. That small little area was no more an entrance to a comfortable space-and-time of leisure and carefree happiness — under the cashew tree, under the night blue mantle of a thousand different stars, within the smells of freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked bread every morning; under the influence of a utopian lifestyle.
It was dead. The house, maybe, but surely, the memory. I looked around. That street I once had such pleasure in watching, —rocking back and forth on grandma’s chair, with a book on my lap that my hands were too lazy to open,— lost its mystique, its simplistic value. It was opaque. The sun shone but not on me, or on that street, or on that town; as if the death of such memory brought me down to certain reality, of gray and concrete, of faces one can’t connect to names, of streets one can’t connect to paths.
They had sold that house, split the money. It wasn’t grandma’s house anymore, I had no rights to it, I had no place to go. The whole past I’ve lived there turned to dust scattered far away by the wind. I was a different person now, I was living a different life, and that rotting carcass in front of me only served to assure me of that. That a memory can only live for so long as a point in reality.