'successful and prosperous, though not without calamities and setbacks.'

-- samuel beckett, murphy

memory is the thing. we play the tape of it over and over again in our spare moments, light or dark. we play it as though we expect to be able to change something. it doesn't work like that-- i get to live through the parts that still play once again, but the outcome is always the same. can't bring back time, like joyce said. like holding water in your hand. no matter how many times that memory reel spins for me monica always leaves, the embarrassing moments and missteps happen, catherine doesn't give me contact information, i never get to know a lot of people i would have liked to, and all the rest i constantly allude to on here.

maybe the part we miss is that the good things get their spot too, if we let them. just as we cannot change the past, nothing can take it away from us; it is wholly ours and comfortable if we leave out the nostalgia part. laura always falls in love with me, i always have the chance to know christine, i always get the unexpected opportunity to be closer to emmie after all these years, and the scattered good times play on and on: nicole before things got weird. the only painful part about all that is that it's over, but at least it happened. what went wrong eventually led to somewhere right, and what was right stayed right, if you know where to cut. i suppose the key thing is becoming an experienced memory projectionist, which requires a lot of time alone, which is sad anyway, so never mind.

i come back to the contrary influences here-- tilford tried to convince me that regret was pointless and julia never wore a watch. didn't believe in it. if you don't know what time, what day something happened, it can't get back to you the next time around. was that her theory? i don't think i ever asked her. sounds like i'm projecting myself onto her, but it was so long ago i don't see how i couldn't be.

--

i've been living in this place for about a year now. last year's thoughts. i get another summer here, which means low windows and limited sunshine and imogen heap.