Jamais Vu Suite
a collection of memories at different tempos
jamais vu: n. French. Never seen; the experience of being unfamiliar with a person or situation that is actually very familiar; the familiar become lost.
I. Lento (slowly)
The memories are there. Almost. Most all. Most all of the memories are there, hiding in the recess. The recess where I am not allowed to see. Not allowed to remember. Allowed memory. In the recess there are memories but no memory. Where the memories are almost there. Most all there. Hiding in the recess.
Some. Some I can taste. Some of the memories. The taste of a sunny meadow. Of a memory of a sunny meadow. The taste of a memory. It's salty and sweet and maybe a little bitter. A bitter memory. A bitter memory that tastes sweet. A sweet and salty and bitter memory that tastes like a sunny meadow. A meadow hiding in the recess.
I was happy, I think. Happy and sad. A little sad. Happy and a little sad. The memory tastes happy and a little sad. The memory is a little sad. A sunny meadow that is not always sunny. Hazy. A hazy day that is just a little darker than it should be. Not as blue as it could be. A meadow that is sunny, but not as sunny as it could be. Not overcast. Not yet. But soon. Soon the sky will be overcast. Cast over. The bright hazy sky will be cast over. A meadow that will soon be darker than it should be. A bright and white and hazy sky over the taste of a meadow. Happy and a little sad.
A boy. My son. Maybe. Not old but older. A boy not old but older. Maybe my son. He is not the meadow. The boy is not the meadow. The meadow is about. Of. The meadow is of the boy. About the boy. A meadow that is of the boy and about the boy. A meadow that is bright with haze and will soon be cast over. A memory I am not allowed to remember. The taste of a meadow, happy and a little sad. Happy for him. Sad for me. The idea of leaving. A memory hiding in the recess. The taste of a meadow, happy and a little sad, bright and hazy, casting over.
The sky is squinty bright. A white sky. A haze. A bright haze that makes me squint. The taste of bright and squinty. When the sky darkens, it will be easier to see. A little sad, but easier. The taste of easier. The memory I am not allowed to remember has the taste of easier. The taste of sad that is a little easier. A boy, not old but older, going away. A memory of happy and sad and a little bitter. Of bright and squinty. Of a little overcast. Of going to be overcast. Of easier. The idea of easier. Easier to see. Easier to be sad.
The taste of sweet and salty and a little bitter hides in the recess. A memory that is almost there. Most all there. In the recess. A memory that is most all there. A memory cast over in the recess where I am not allowed. Where there are memories but no memory.
II. Andante (at a walking pace)
Trees make me weep. They crack the skin that stretches between my armpits and the ticklish bit just above my hips. No. Not the skin. Just beneath the skin. They crack something just beneath the skin, something that holds the skin to my body. The skin pulls away from my body, leaves a pocket of air, a filled hole that keeps the skin from sticking, pushes it out to stretch away, holding fast to itself, but no longer part of me. This is how trees make me weep. This is how I feel when I look at a tree and feel no loss.
I wonder if she liked trees. If we liked trees. If we walked beneath them, comparing one bark to the other. If we knew their names. Knew a sickly one with no more than a glance. If trees should make me weep in earnest for the memory of her. Memories of the hours, years we spent walking beneath them, our hands in congress, our skins pulling themselves tightly to each other even as they held fast to our bodies. I wonder if that is how trees should make me weep. For the loss of love. For the loss of something.
I watched one as it was cut down. A tree, a big one really. Probably it was dying. At the time, I remember thinking that it was unfortunate. I remember wondering if the landscaping company was a bunch of crooks, if they went around telling people their trees were dying just to garner business. I remember thinking that living is born of dying. That there would be fewer leaves to rake. Fewer sticks to pick up. That mowing the lawn would be more difficult without the shade but easier without the obstruction. That it was someone else's problem. Problem.
I wonder if we shared a house. If she mowed the lawn or if I did. If we hired someone to do it for us. If we set out furniture beneath a tree. If we sat in the shade, laughing at the bird shit falling from above and soiling our clothes. If we left the furniture out in the rain. If we took it in when we mowed the lawn and sometimes forgot to put it out again. If we sat on the porch looking wistfully at the shady spot under the tree, furniture sleeping in the shed, too lazy to drag it out.
The tree, the one I saw cut down, remained a stump for a long time. I remember thinking that it must have been sick after all. That no self respecting crook of a landscaper would sell the job of cutting down a tree without the upsell of rooting the stump. I remember wondering if it would try again. The tree. If it would send little shoots through the stump. If I would witness the birth of something that would outlive me by a hundred years. It did not. Try again.
I never think of us here. Here I feel things. Here I can sense loss. Here where homes pile on top of each other, where everyone is busy, where everything is watch-out. Here I can feel loss in the sidewalk, in the garbage that piles along the alleys, in the cars that rub up against each other, pushing each other out of the way, chest bumping each other. No. Not chest bumping. More like bullies and prey. C'mon buddy, let's go, you're holding up the line. That is a loss I understand. A loss I can feel. This is not a place she was. Not a place we were.
*
Wind makes me tremble. In my apartment, there is a place where the window never quite closes. The wind whistles through the crack and sings to my bed. It does not lull me to sleep. Does not comfort me. Does not chill me. It has no substance. No loss. It seeps through my skin and chills my body. Separates me from the warmth of my skin. The wind sings through my window and seeps into my body, holding the chill under my skin. This is how wind makes me tremble.
I remember walking to the grocery. Three flights down carrying my little rolling cart so I could pull it through the slush. Three blocks into the wind and no better on the way home. The wind is like trees. I feel the bitter cold on my face, feel the annoyance at my fogged glasses. But the wind itself is empty. Even as my skin pulls itself tight around my body to fight the winter trying to push its way in, I feel the crack, the bubble growing between my skin and body, pushing the skin away. There is no memory in the wind. No loss. It is simply a thing. An empty thing.
I wonder if there is a word for this. For empty. For the crack between my skin and my body, the one that forms between my armpits and the ticklish bit just above my hips. This dread. Perhaps dread is why trees make me weep. Why the whistling wind pulls me down, takes my feet out from under me. You're going to want to sit down for this. Maybe the dread is born of absence. Maybe absence and loss are not the same. Maybe the word is mourning. Can you mourn something you have never known?
Returning from the grocery, I slipped on the landing and fell beneath my little cart. I wasn't hurt. It was like falling underneath a large wheeled suitcase. Except it was open on top. And some of the groceries fell out. And I was sitting on the landing, the top of the cart in my lap, little plastic bags of vegetables and cans and crackers and packaged ingredients spilling on top of me. I sat there with melted snow soaking through underneath as loneliness piled on top. Intimate with me. A loss I understand. This is not a place she was. Not a place we were.
It is difficult to leave the city properly. What I want is to walk. To escape, step by step, tiny increments drawing away from what I know into the dread of what I do not. Know. To step into the street and keep going. To walk until the city is only a memory. A loss. To walk until nothing is familiar. Until nothing has meaning, except in its absence. Until the cracks under my skin grow large enough to crack the skin itself. To rip open my flesh and let the rest of me out. Until I am utterly separate from the world. Then will I be where she was. Where we were.
I tried once. I left my apartment. I walked down the street. I waited at a stoplight. I walked two blocks. I waited for cars to pass a road with no stop sign. I walked to a stoplight. The street was busy. Comforting. I walked several more blocks, stopping for my turn at each stop sign. Another four blocks, another stoplight. The chill began to take hold of me somewhere around the fifth or sixth stoplight. The road grew wider. I approached an underpass leading to a highway. There were four stoplights at that spot alone. Alone. I turned back. Turned. Back. Stoplights are not empty. Stoplights exude loss.
Turning back is a kind of loss. A loss of courage. Of heart. A loss of heart. It is a loss I can feel, can remember. It a hole in my body, in my chest, mostly in the middle but a little bit to the left. My left. This is not a hole filled with air, not a bubble pushing the skin from my body in that space between my armpit and the ticklish bit just above my hip. This a proper hole. A vacuum. An empty space to draw the rest of me in. A place to abhor. This is not a place we were. Not a loss we knew. Loss of heart.
*
I think there was a child. A small one. Just learning to walk. Hardly more than a year old, but we'd pierced her ears. A tiny green gem on each earlobe. Not pink. Green. That's important. I can feel the pink one. The tiny purple hands and toes cold to the touch. The sheer joy of inconsolable crying. A future. That's the pink. Not green. The green is shaking, quiet, broken. The green has no presence. Not a presence I can feel. That is the one. Our child. The one that died.
There is a waiting room at the children's hospital. At the emergency room at the children's hospital. That is not a place we were. Loss and hope swirl about it, a sort of scented smoke that is both seductive and revolting in the same breath. Tears and smiles and boredom. Fear. Courage. Love. Magazines. Television. Hands gripped tight around chairs. Healthy children tugging at their fathers, mothers saying, yes, yes, go, I'll be fine. I walked by and felt drawn in. Drawn in to this place of waiting. Waiting for the worst. Praying for the best. This is not a place we were.
We were in the next room over. The big one. The one for grownups. The one with attendants pushing wheeled carts for entering patient information. The one with doctors moving from desks to rooms and back again. The one with sliding glass doors that you can't see through. The one where you wait in the hallway, crouched down, tears dripping onto your phone, a uniformed helper with her hand on your shoulder, knowing she can't really help. The crowd of doctors, nurses, interns, just on the other side of the glass door, doing what they can, knowing it won't be enough. This. This is a place we were.
*
The darkness of lonely roads catches my breath. The darkness I cannot feel. The darkness that should be filled with loss. It catches the breath I spill and holds it. Waits for me to take it back. Waits. It reaches out its hand, holds out the breath, and waits. It does not return my breath. Does not keep it back. It holds it out before me. Waits for me to take it. To breathe again. This is how the darkness of roads catches my breath.
Here the roads are bright. Streetlights lay bare every thought. Every fault. Every crack and hole. Every patch that doesn't quite match up with the rest of the road. I remember leaving my apartment. I was lonely. Alone. I was alone and thought I should not be. Was not supposed to be. Supposed. I walked to a busy tavern where I was a stranger. I sat down at the bar and left before my beer was finished. I was lonelier surrounded by people than when I was alone. The busy tavern showed me how alone I was. Streetlights are like that.
I visited a friend in a rural place. A place with dark roads. After I woke in the night, I walked a quiet road alone. The road said nothing. I lost my breath. I lost my breath, and the road caught it. The road caught my breath and held it out for me. Waited for me to take it back. This is a place we were. An empty road. An absent place. A place that was never here. I wonder if we walked roads or drove them. If we turned off the headlights to feel the darkness rush past us at death defying speeds. Death defying.
I saw a plastic bottle today. Short, stubby, orange. A bottle for pills. It was cracked. Smashed really. Empty. I picked it up from the sidewalk and held it in my hands. Held this empty thing in my hands. This thing without loss in my hands. The space inside the bottle tried to push apart the shards, but they held fast to the label. I drove my fingers inside the bottle and let the plastic crack away, ripping the label apart. Felt the lack of substance fall from my hands. Felt the crack in the space beneath my skin, beneath the skin between my armpits and the ticklish bit just above my hips.
Perhaps it is better to not remember. Better to never have known. To never have known the trees along the dark lonely road. To never have known the wind that whistled through the crack in the window. To never have seen the seizures, the medicine she never should have been able to reach, the doctors doing everything they could and knowing it could never be enough. Better never to have known loss. Perhaps it is better to separate from my skin, to lose myself altogether, than to know what I have lost.
This is how trees make me weep.
III. Affretando (becoming hurried)
There is way that lost creeps upon you. Not from behind. Not like a child or prankster preparing to startle you. Lost does not hang about in trees, watching you from above, jumping from branch to branch as you walk through the woods, slowly moving closer, always just about to pounce. That is not the way lost creeps upon you. Lost creeps upon you the way a friend deserts you. The way they are there until they are not. The way you wonder when they stopped being there. When you stopped being there. Or darkness. The way there is no darkness until there is all darkness, and you are never sure when it happened. When it got dark.
There is a way that lost wraps your body. Not like a blanket. Not like the snuggle of covers in your bed. Not like the comfort of your comforter that smothers you until you throw it off just to remind yourself that your room is still cold. Lost does not wrap your body like a bandage, bothering you with itches for your own good. That is not the way lost wraps your body. Lost wraps your body the way sand crushes you. The way uncountable masses of grains conspire to push you to the floor, one grain at a time. To obscure you from the world until you miss your breath.
There is a way that lost twists your stomach. The top of your stomach. The churning bile and gas that maybe was something you ate. Not the dread of maybe it was your fault. Lost does not twist your stomach with maybe it was your fault. Lost twists your stomach with the terror of maybe it wasn't your fault. Lost is the men across the street. The men that are maybe following you. Not the men that want to hurt you. Lost does not twist your stomach with the fear of men that want to hurt you. Lost twists your stomach with the fear of the men that don't want to hurt you, but will anyway.
Lost is forgetting when you became numb to the cold. Finding yourself in a place with no end in sight and no memory of when it began. Knowing the end has already come and you missed it.
Lost is knowing you are already dead.
IV. Staccato (short, separated)
blue sky
black ice
a green car grimed with salt in the driveway
a railing with three steps
a tight turn on the landing
messy home
not dirty, but messy
crowded
a dog in a crate, open
man on the couch pointing to the hall
a television, on
mail, catalogs, magazines
melted ice in a glass, brown
soda bottles in the trash
carpet
some dog hair, not much
bathroom door, open
blue nightgown with a woman inside it slumped on a shower stool
three sixty maybe
no pulse
crowded bathroom
asses
elbows
dead body
a man on the couch, crying
sun through a window
a television, on
a crowd, gathering
sandals on snow
the wait
the wait
the wait for the coroner
a station wagon
a white vinyl sheet with a zipper
a stretcher
a tight turn on the landing
a railing with three steps
mourners
a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers with a phone
a look
a kiss
a tear
a bag of cargo in the back of a station wagon to the tune of wailing mourners
black ice
blue sky
it is possible to silence grief with the closing of a door
About the poems
This suite of poems is inspired by my 20 years volunteering as an EMT. Those moments belong to the patients, of course, and I don’t have the right to share them. Yet, I have been inspired and want to share that inspiration.
I have found that, over time, many of my experiences have mixed together in my memory as a wash of emotion, others stand out only as one or two stark images, with all the intervening detail lost. Just as the moments themselves are ephemeral, so too are the memories, constant as they are only in their ability to change with each retelling.
Lento explores that moment, coming for all of us, when our memories begin to elude us. When we can remember the idea of the memory, the taste of it, but the memory itself, the story, is gone from us forever. In this case, the lost memory of a father and son parting. A slow dredging with little to show for it.
Andante is less about our inability to find our memory as when we actively hide it from ourselves. When we hide what we cannot bear, how far does that hiding go? How many parts of our life cling to the memory we refuse to acknowledge, become hidden from us along with it, slowly tearing apart the fabric of our lives? It is a meditation on hiding. A walking meditation. A slow and thoughtful stroll, a little dreamy.
Affretando wades into the terror of memory not lost or hidden, but actively changed. Mental illness is too large a defintion, and madness, though more poetic, suggests something we only imagine in fiction. Yet, the world is not always as it seems. When we see that, when we know it, we no longer know where we are. Imagine, not the fear of what is coming, but the fear of accepting what has already come.
Staccato is not a tempo. It is a style of shortened and sharply separated notes. Individual images, gathered together in one place, but always with space between them. Gaps that fight the urge to bring them together into one memory, but hold them as a collection, a handful of images, scary, jumbled, defined, and wild, all in the same breath. Not quite enough for a proper memory.