Thank Proust for the memories

Everybody knows the story of the Madeleine. If you don't, your punishment is to read In Search of Lost Time. Tell me how good it is when you get to page 800. I've heard that's when he really starts to hit his stride. It's best to learn French first anyhow to do the work justice. I'll see you in a few years. Now, for the rest of us knowledgeable folk it's time to talk about memory. Scent is supposedly the strongest of the five senses associated with memory. But I think we all know that the strongest of the sense memories is auditory, and it's either amazing or crappy music that you listened to growing up. Whether it's the cow saying moo or the Muppets banging out classic Christmas hits with John Denver music reminds all of us of childhood, angsty teen years and how lame our parents/woops I guess that's me, are.

A year and a half ago I did a dramatic count down to turning thirty. And when I use the word dramatic know that I use it lightly, very lightly. Anyhow, in that countdown, wait, why is it only one word now when before it was two?, I used a video by Lionel Richie. I've now realized that I used the wrong video by Lionel Richie. I used Hello, which is not in fact the song that my sister and I danced to on living room chairs. No. We danced to Lionel Richie's song, "All Night Long," which is about dancing all night long. And, it's still a great song. You should probably go put it on your iPod right now and thank me. And then maybe push together some chairs and do some dancing.



When you are a child your body is always in motion. Stillness is a punishment, or observed only while staring at reefs of clouds or backs of insects. Perhaps it is all this motion that we pay for in our old age, in the long sleep that follows this life. Or perhaps we are called into motion again, brought back like a summer wind in October into the minds of those we have loved and lost.

Some quotes from Bodies in motion and at rest from the poet and essayist and funeral director Thomas Lynch.


"Grief is the tax we pay on our attachments"

"For poetry readings the general rule is that if the poet is outnumbered, it is a success."

"The same rule holds for funerals. Wherever two or three are gathered is enough to outnumber the dead guy. If one of them will stand up and hold forth, you've got all the ingredients you will ever need: someone who agrees to quit breathing, someone who cares, and someone who's trying to make sense of all this."

"For time bears its burden effortlessly--our loves and losses, hopes and remembrances, our parents and babies, good laughs and good cries. Time heals and holds us in its embrace. The future is a place we can travel lightly into, hopeful and afloat--all of our unfinished business finished by default--time runs out, runs on, with our without us."