Lauren, this account of your heart’s memory was so poignant and I can’t help but wonder if it is, in a deeper way, truer than it might have been had you been able to locate your photos. The heart speaks in poetry, which is, after all, a distillation of the facts, the nucleus of what facts, however important they are, can only suggest.
By the way, to quote Tennessee Williams and Hannah Arendt (a brilliant alcoholic playwright, and a political philosopher, respectively) both of whom understood, with profundity, a thing or two about truth, was a kind of poetry in itself.
You may not think you remember, but the vividness with which you describe the places is extraordinary. And I could feel your frustration not being able to find the notes and pictures that you diligently took for just this reason - that you didn't trust your memory anymore. I'm actually having that feeling now myself. I took graduate classes at Michigan State University many years ago, commuting from Ann Arbor. I spent countless hours in the MSU Student Union, studying, eating, people watching, whiling away the hours, but I can't visualize the rooms. To think of that place now as a crime scene, the site of several murders, is disorienting and just surreal. To have that happen with a whole city and region is incomprehensible.
I truly hope the people who helped you in Turkey and Syria are alive and healthy and able to help others survive.
Lauren, this account of your heart’s memory was so poignant and I can’t help but wonder if it is, in a deeper way, truer than it might have been had you been able to locate your photos. The heart speaks in poetry, which is, after all, a distillation of the facts, the nucleus of what facts, however important they are, can only suggest.
By the way, to quote Tennessee Williams and Hannah Arendt (a brilliant alcoholic playwright, and a political philosopher, respectively) both of whom understood, with profundity, a thing or two about truth, was a kind of poetry in itself.
Thanks so much, love your writing. And the color of the flowers is such a stark contrast to the gray final photo.
You may not think you remember, but the vividness with which you describe the places is extraordinary. And I could feel your frustration not being able to find the notes and pictures that you diligently took for just this reason - that you didn't trust your memory anymore. I'm actually having that feeling now myself. I took graduate classes at Michigan State University many years ago, commuting from Ann Arbor. I spent countless hours in the MSU Student Union, studying, eating, people watching, whiling away the hours, but I can't visualize the rooms. To think of that place now as a crime scene, the site of several murders, is disorienting and just surreal. To have that happen with a whole city and region is incomprehensible.
I truly hope the people who helped you in Turkey and Syria are alive and healthy and able to help others survive.
You convey your almost unspeakable grief and frustration/helplessness so well. Thank you.