when your remembering things that havent happened yet, thats when you need to re-evaluate the validity of your memory

"And yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present." (214)

i believe that what we are involved in now, does heavily effect the way in which we recall the things from our past. but i'm not so sure i'd go as far as to say that it is not trust-worthy . . .
can it not be trusted because it is not the entire truth? then again, what is truth? is it just the facts, laid out in an objective fashion? or is there something other than truth, that memory fails to provide? i'm curious as to what it is about memory that influences kincaid to think that it's not a valid source of experience.

an example? ok. so i'm thinking of a memory from awhile back - my younger brother and i, no more than 5 and 6 years of age, running up a muddy slant in our backyard and then hurling ourselves down it, barefoot, while holding onto a trapeze bar. when i'm recalling this, my mind flashes images of my brother in his current state, between the images of him as a little boy. i also can't help but to think of how we would interact in that situation now, as the people we've become since then. my mind/memory creates this randomized culmination of then and now without any deliberate prompt from me, and so it is entirely unavoidable. in this way, it is the experiences of my more recent past and the present, which help me to regain my thoughts of the far past. how is that not accurate?

i dont believe my wandering thoughts of how things are now, negatively effect the validity of my muddy-trapeze-memory. if anything, i feel as though they brighten it, making it more accessible to me in this state of being, so far removed from my 6-year-old self. i trust my memory, even when it may not be comprised of the clearest images and the most defined experiences. because no matter what i recall, it came from within my mind. and i trust myself first, above anyone else.

A lack of something...

While reading Kincaid's novel I had a difficult time connecting to the story. Our discussion on Tuesday in class helped me to to better understand the concept of the text--but I still felt something was missing from my understanding of the story. While reading last night I came to realize that perhaps what it is about the text that is missing is the feeling of love. There seems to be such a separation between Xuela and everyone that is around her. The writing in the text is beautiful, but perhaps I am not able to connect/understand the text because I have never been in such a position as the author. The separation between life and death seems to define the text. But then again I have never been a slave and was able to connect to Frederick Douglas's narrative? There is a good chance this idea needs more thought..

Two pulchritudinous (favorite word) lines from the text are:
"To make someone forget another person is impossible. Someone can forget an event, someone can forget an item, but no one can ever forget someone else." p108 I thought these lines were astounding. So simply written and so honest and true.

Dark and Dismal "Autobiography"

I think that The Autobiography of my Mother is quite the dark and dismal book. It's message is definitely one of hopelessness. Xuela is both self-centered and loveless. The only man she admits to loving (Roland) is only discussed for about twenty pages in one chapter. She then proceeds to discuss the people in her life whom she admits that she never loved and will never love, like her father and her husband. I am beginning to wonder whether she would have loved her mother if she had lived past Xuela's birth. Is that the pivotal moment in Xuela's story, her mother's death? Could she have deeply if her mother had lived? I'm not so sure, because she discusses her mother's life in brief later on in her story. Her mother potentially lived the same loveless life. I think the last passage of the novel dictates Xuela's stance on life quite well:

"The days are long, the days are short. The nights are a blank; they harken to something, but I refuse to become familiar with it. To that period of time called day I profess an indifference; such a thing is a vanity but known only to me; all that is impersonal I have made personal. Since I do not matter, I do not long to matter, but I matter anyway. I long to meet the thing greater than I am, the thing to which I can submit. It is not a in a book of history, it is not the work or anyone whose name can pass my own lips. Death is the only reality, for it is the only certainty, inevitable to all things."

(Page 228)

Xuela returns to contradictions. Though she feels she does not matter, nor does she long to matter, that is why she does matter. She has fought against having a purpose and a passion in life (other than the love she has for herself). She longs to meet death. All of the people in her life have, by this time, passed away. She is 70-years-old and has no one left, not that she really cares. However, she learned from birth that death really is the only certainty, that is why she thinks it is the only thing that will make her submit. She never submitted to love, and therefore, I believe, never submitted to life.

The metaphor running through this last passage is one of light and dark. She says that she is indifferent toward day, which is comparable to life. She has no qualms against darkness, or the "life" that follows life. She is prepared to meet death, because it is the only thing she believes in. It is the only thing she knows will come. Not God. Not love. Not happiness.

...something? nothing? whose story?...