You are here.
As you walk down this shadowy street of my (your) memory, pay attention to your body and the breeze going past, the way I (you) shudder as a leaf blows or a shadow rolls past – from the car, a train, a carousel in the distance. Reach into my (your) pocket for a trinket or a token from that time – when was it? – long ago yet not so long, for this object is right here in my (your) hand. How does it feel? The imprint of it in my (your) palm, its weight in the fingers. Gaze out and see shadows…nothing is very clear in this dim light, but still it feels familiar and I (you) can make out shapes and mood at the sound and the presence of my (your) body. My (your) hand in someone else’s, but you (they) are no longer there. What is that like?
This is the space of that memory.
When you enter the room with the record player, it is playing a song you have never heard. Yet, it sounds familiar. The tone of it tells you it is old. The scratchiness tells you of its history. And since none of us know the song, we know the record wasn’t ours. It never belonged to us. It has brought with it the traces of those we don’t know – we can hear them in the absence of the music and the click-scratch-static of the interruptions as the record plays. This sets the mood for what we are doing now. Just as you, right now, have taken on traces of your predecessors. Our motions bear traces of their thoughts and intentions, but we can’t know exactly what they are.
