More Thoughts: Six

The importance of memory.

I’m not sure where I read this piece by Borges. Knowing that the author was blind, made it particularly poignant. While it didn’t apply directly to me, I now realize how, as we age, memory will be our life.

Borges – L’Artefice

“He (Hector) had never lingered over the pleasures of memory. Impressions slid away, momentary and vivid; the vermilion of a potter, the celestial vault full of stars which were also gods, the moon, from which a lion had fallen, the polished feel of marble beneath sensitive slow fingers, the flavor of boar meat, which he liked to eat in white decisive bites, a Phoenician word, the black shadow of a spear on the yellow sand, the proximity of the sea or of women, dense wine whose dryness cut the honey, these could completely fill his soul.”

“Gradually the lovely universe abandoned him; an obstinate mist cancelled the lines of his hand, the stars disappeared from the sky, the earth became uncertain beneath his steps. Everything moved off and became confused. When he realized he was becoming blind, he cried out; the modesty of the stoics had not yet been invented and Hector could flee without dishonor. I will no longer see (he felt) the sky full of mythological fears, nor this face, which the years will change. Days and nights passed on his desperation of the flesh, but one morning he woke up, and observed (at this point without wonder) the indistinct things that surrounded him and inexplicably felt, like someone recognizing music or a voice, that all this had already happened and that he had faced it with hesitation, but also with joy, hope and curiosity. Then he descended into his memory, which seemed interminable to him, and from that vertigo he succeeded in extracting the lost memory, which shone like a coin under the rain, perhaps because he had never observed it, except perhaps in a dream.”