Of Memory, Reminiscence, and Writing
“as though, in order to begin writing, one did not have to forget or otherwise suppress most of what memory and reminiscence have meant; as though the entire matter of memory, reminiscence, recall, recollection, reverie, and repetition were not an endless overture arising out of an absolute past, incapable of infinite development; as though one were not always writing on the verge of both remembrance and oblivion alike. On the verge?”– David Farrell Krell, Of Memory, Reminisence, and Writing
Isabella copies the quote into her Zibaldone, her pen lingering for a moment as though caught in the tension between memory and forgetting itself. She writes beneath it:
What a strange pact with oblivion writing demands. Each page seems to rise from a well of loss, drawing forth fragments of what I can never fully remember—or perhaps never knew. My lost notebooks haunt me in this way: as both evidence and absence. Were they a map of my becoming or just another layer of the palimpsest? Were they the true record of my thoughts or merely a rehearsal for forgetting?
She pauses, her mind flickering to moments when the act of writing felt like stitching her life together, and others when it felt like pulling a thread that unraveled it. The lost notebooks, she reflects, have taken on a mythical quality in her imagination—almost more potent now, in their absence, than they ever were in her hands.
What I wrote then—what I lost—might no longer be the same as what I would discover now. Does it matter if the thread has been broken? Or is the gesture of writing itself the thread? Perhaps every page is an overture to a music I cannot hear, composed on the edge of remembrance and oblivion alike.
She thinks of the quote again, the image of the “absolute past” stirring a strange melancholy. An endless overture, she muses, or perhaps an endless elegy.
Here’s a series of reflective inquiry prompts inspired by Isabella’s pondering of memory, writing, and loss:
- On Memory and Writing:
What role does memory play in your creative process? Are you writing to preserve something, to discover something, or to let something go? - On Forgetting:
How does forgetting shape what you choose to remember? Can loss—of memory, of objects, of words—create new space for meaning? - On Lost Artifacts:
Think of something you once created but have since lost—a notebook, a piece of writing, a drawing, a song. How has its absence changed the way you think about its significance? - On the Palimpsest of Self:
Imagine your mind as a layered text, written and rewritten over time. What fragments remain clear, and what has been obscured or erased? How do these layers shape who you are today? - On the Gesture of Writing:
Is the act of writing itself more important than the artifact it produces? What does the process of writing reveal about you in the moment of creation? - On the “Absolute Past”:
Do you believe there is an “absolute past” that writing can capture? Or is the past always fluid, reshaped by memory and imagination in the act of telling? - On Reverie and Repetition:
How do you navigate between reverie and repetition in your life or creative work? Do certain memories or themes return to you, asking to be reexamined, retold, or released? - On Absence and Meaning:
Can absence be as meaningful as presence? What might your lost artifacts, memories, or words still be offering you, even in their disappearance? - On Writing as a Thread:
If writing is a thread that weaves your life together, where do you feel it is leading you? Do you write to follow this thread or to create it anew? - On Writing at the Edge:
How do you experience the edge between remembrance and oblivion in your creative or reflective practices? Does standing on this threshold inspire or unsettle you?
These prompts are meant to invite you – the reader – to delve deeply into your own relationship with memory, creativity, and loss, mirroring Isabella’s own journey of reflection and inquiry. Come along for the ride!
The Vision: Welcome to the lost notebooks of Isabella Sinclaire