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- Sep 1, 2006
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What with all these love threads and first kisses....it is odd how memorable (moreso at a distance of many decades, paradoxically)
some primordial near-misses at love can be.
Lots of Nabokov stories seem to have a memory of a near-miss at the core and Walter Benjamin observed: "Love in the City is love at last sight."
And I'm back to thinking of a Joan from long ago. So the research topic is "primoridial near-miss in retrospect" and there may be some implications as to how a primoridial near-miss influences one's later reading of characters in history and literature.
For the moment, back to the Joan that I described in the post about first kisses:
For a non-love, she had a big impact. If somebody says "Joan of Arc" Joan is the Joan I see and in my mind she is also Jane Eyre...all because of one day when she walked up a hill to meet me.
It was incredibly bright early Spring, late afternoon. I saw her get out of school and start toward me. She was a tall girl in a long gray coat and she had the best walk for a 13-year-old that can be imagined. She had a very austere look...not really so uncommon in those days. Her hair was straight and severe and pretty short, but she moved very well and really was not in the least what she seemed to be. Well...I don't know what she was. We were not in love, but she fascinated me, at least as I now remember it. There you go, Joan. In my memory, I see you walking now up a brown hillside in the cold Spring wind, but through some trick in my mind's eye you are walking away alone into the last bright moments of the afternoon.
some primordial near-misses at love can be.
Lots of Nabokov stories seem to have a memory of a near-miss at the core and Walter Benjamin observed: "Love in the City is love at last sight."
And I'm back to thinking of a Joan from long ago. So the research topic is "primoridial near-miss in retrospect" and there may be some implications as to how a primoridial near-miss influences one's later reading of characters in history and literature.
For the moment, back to the Joan that I described in the post about first kisses:
For a non-love, she had a big impact. If somebody says "Joan of Arc" Joan is the Joan I see and in my mind she is also Jane Eyre...all because of one day when she walked up a hill to meet me.
It was incredibly bright early Spring, late afternoon. I saw her get out of school and start toward me. She was a tall girl in a long gray coat and she had the best walk for a 13-year-old that can be imagined. She had a very austere look...not really so uncommon in those days. Her hair was straight and severe and pretty short, but she moved very well and really was not in the least what she seemed to be. Well...I don't know what she was. We were not in love, but she fascinated me, at least as I now remember it. There you go, Joan. In my memory, I see you walking now up a brown hillside in the cold Spring wind, but through some trick in my mind's eye you are walking away alone into the last bright moments of the afternoon.