I have never successfully penetrated some of the most iconic works of literature. The aspiration to understand them, has probably led to a lifetime (so far, 62) of exploring and expanding my own ideas of writing, reflections, journaling, and poetry. A long list of fantastic epics still inspire me, even if I have not made the summit.
Proust’s “Memories” or “Rememberances.” A recent search fed me this information about the revised English title of his collection of books. “How our past experiences resurface unexpectedly and vividly through sensory triggers.” This is the response to a question, about the new Proust title (as of 1992) the idea of “involuntary memory and the search for lost time.” The current American title of the books is In Search of Lost Time. The earlier title, the one with the beautiful silver and black covers, was Remembrance of Things Past. It was in the French “Le Temps retrouvé” that causes the various interpretations. Having only explored limited pages of volume 1 and 5, I have little personal information about this squabble. But, I noticed the change in the title.
One of these linguistic conundrums that makes more sense to me, is over the opening line of Camus’ The Stranger. In this amazing book that uncorked me in college one afternoon walking across the quad. Camus was resetting my view of the world, of writing, of a desire to read and write French. Here’s the fun. The French says, “Maman est muerte.” In the general translation available in the late 80s, while I was in college, read “Mother is dead.” The word Maman, as it was later revealed to me is more like a pet name, like we might call our grandparents Poppi and Gran. The more modern, literal, translation reads “Mama is dead.” I’m not sure if “maman” was like “grandma” and generic, or more like a specific name that he called his mother. The importance may be lost on most. I, however, crave to find the heart of any work that is speaking to me.
There are others. Ulysses, by Joyce. Infinite Jest. Magic Mountain. Gravity’s Rainbow. The Waves. Books that challenge the reader into altered states of consciousness. Streams of consciousness. Into streams of consciousness that are not reliable or well. Kerouac and Miller showed us the crushed side of this movement. Riff. Roll. Rock. Let it rip. Hunter S. Thompson. It’s unfortunate that some of their fuel was alcohol or speed, leading to decline and eventual death. Jack was a very unhappy successful writer. He was better on a bender with zero responsibility.
There is a pressure here. Ambition. I’m unclear on my present desire for FAME. What I’d like is time to write and stuff to write about. At this very moment in time, I’m good. I’m blasting. Seeking. Using the unease to fuel “cash flow” opportunities. Things that won’t damage my spirit, my health, or my physical body.
Involuntary Memory, from Proust does provide a phrase for what artists tune into. At least, it’s part of my process. Like AI, I prompt my mind for memories, ideas, words, sounds. The input is often photos from social media. How funny, right? I’m using the disconnection of online social and allowing the triggers to open up new paths for my creativity to travel down. I can promise you, if you give it time, if you listen, all of it (your past) is recorded in high-definition and retrievable. But you often have to be patient, wait, prompt again, wait.
In AI there’s a recent concept of REWARD. In general AI inquiries are structured in terms of tokens (credits) and time. In a typical experience with ChatGPT, for example, there is your prompt and a set amount of time that the system is going to seek your answer. When you “time out” AI gives the results it has discovered. Often in hallucinations and lies. The time and token metaphor has been our governing concept. But, if we give the AI “agent” a goal and a reward, we can give the inquiry a different set of parameters. Unrestricted by time, your mind is both slow and instantly illuminated.
The first responses are what I call signals. Here let’s do an experiment. I’m going to give you a word. Let’s see what your brain, your LLLM, large living language model, does with a single prompt with no goal.
LOSS
That word lights up several spots in your mind. The connections are instantaneous and involuntary. They are triggered by the word, but more importantly, by your HUMAN CONTEXT.
What happens next is up to you.
I’ve been learning to dive in after the initial flashes of memory. Speluncking as it were, for my own recorded history. I am presumptuous in assuming this is what Proust had in mind when he coined “involuntary memory.” As a writer I cultivate and even seek out the triggers. I dive in after the interesting ones. I begin to map new contexts and connections to this retrieved memory, image, sound, song, taste, location.
One of the newer personal understandings has come from awakened phrases, a collection of two or more words, that come to anchor this memory in my neural storage system. For example, on a drive home from New Mexico, the phrase “Portrait of the Artist as a Disappointment” came into my mind. Boom. A variation from Joyce’s masterpiece. A re-envisioning of my own coming-of-age story as one of disappointment. To me? To my mom? To Maman?
As I allowed the phrase to repeat over and over, so I wouldn’t forget it, I could feel the flickering memories start to light up. The piano she gave me then regifted to my nephew. The inability for her to listen or comment on my music without a negative filter. She was afraid of my art. Perhaps she was afraid of her own art. I don’t know.
Mom gave me the gift of reading and writing. The appreciation for art in all its forms. And my own discovery of what I liked, what I loved, and what I hated. She provided the guide star for art and collapsed into her own struggle. Toward the end of her life, I tried to get her reenergized about her art, the discovery of her art, and getting her back in the studio to paint. She was reluctant. She was old. It was hard for her to stand for long periods of time. She would have to evolve. She no longer had the stand-alone art studio for 12′ x 12′ canvases. She would need to try something different.
She was in her 80s. She had added AC and a glass door to the garage for me when I lost my home to my angry ex-wife. I lived in her garage for nine months while I got back on my feet. She was happy to convert the garage. It was going to be her art studio. Smaller, but a space to create.
A space to create.
I pushed her a bit. “You’re going to have to find a way to express your painting and drawing inside this new studio. You’ve got to evolve.”
She did. She began working on smaller 3′ x 3′ canvases. The odd thing that are started hearing from her, however, was a key for me to unlock my own artistic struggle. A struggle we shared. I was having breakfast coffee with her once a week, and the topics were rich with variation and intellect. When I asked about her painting, she often exclaimed, “It’s hard work. Not fun. I don’t do it for entertainment.”
I didn’t quite compute at the time. Perhaps, I thought, she was talking about her physical pain, standing, moving around on the concrete floor of the former garage. She was talking about the creative process. Perhaps her own losses.
A few years into this process Covid arrived and shut our coffees down, slowed and muted much of our connection. As her health and anxiety began to fight, she moved into an assisted living facility. Her life shut down. Her hope began to wane.
I was alarmed. She wasn’t reading. “I can’t keep the concentration for an entire page. I have to reread everything, it’s too much.” She was watching crap television from the bottom of Netflix. “Oh, just watching some crappy show,” she’d say when I called her each night in The Triangle, her new home.
I took her and demonstrated my new iPad and ProCreate software. She never picked it up. I kept challenging her. “Mom, you’ve got to find a way to excite and give time to your creative art.” For weeks she would tell me, “It’s too hard.”
“No, it’s not. I can get you paints, paper, pastels. You just need to start.”
“I could do drawings.”
“Yes, drawings would be great. What do you need?”
When she passed away, a few months after Christmas, her watercolors and pastels were still spread out with new postcard-sized drawings. She was doing it.
“It’s hard.”
I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t compel her to paint. I could only remind her of the joy. Perhaps that was part of our disconnect. If her art was so difficult for her. If the paintings were triggered by pain and regret, perhaps that’s how she ended up battling with her own creative work. She was not famous. She created amazing paintings and poems that enriched all who knew her.
Did she leave some of her work undone? I’m not sure. What I do know is her drawings were beginning to be part of her dialogue again. With herself. With me. With her friends and other family members. She was happiest, as am I, when she was in a creative struggle. I hope to give mine a happier spin. Creative burst. It’s painful only when it overwhelms other parts of my life. I can manage that.
