being memory

“We will walk on a hill
Red hats and blue coats, and everything still.
Snow will cover until
We can't tell the sky from the ground.
Where are the buildings, the old wounds of mine?
Did I ever once cry?

Waiting for you to arrive,
Where does the time go?”

~ The Innocence Mission, Where Does the Time Go?


Walking through places I know very well, the experience is one of inhabiting past as well as present. Since childhood I’ve had a vivid memory, but now I sense it has accumulated some depth and the aspect of witness. Living in the same small city for many years, it is easy to realize how present is often shadowed by past.

During a walk through the Old Port section of town, I noticed myself looking at construction sites while my mind’s eye “saw” what used to be in these places. That is an obvious example of seeing one thing and being reminded of something else. Indeed, our senses serve to activate and recollect imagery. Under chilled and overcast skies, with hands in pockets and hopping cobblestone curbs, I asked myself about references I carry with me. The aroma of boxwood hedges above rainwashed pavers brings Paris to Portland; to me, it is from time immemorial. I have a favorite shirt, of green flannel and laundered to the point of soft flexibility- which was bought at a general store in Vermont when I was unprepared for cold weather. It seems out of place when I wear it in large cities. An indelible scar on the side of my left thumb dates back to a painful injury that occurred while I was routinely rebinding a book. Unforgettably, it was Thackeray’s Vanity Fair : A Novel Without a Hero. My skiving knife cut so deeply it reached the side of my thumbnail. Fortunately, it happened at home. After bandaging the wound and remembering to elevate it, I also remembered the leftover red wine in my refrigerator. Downing it, I reasoned, would help rebuild the blood cells. What reminders are with you wherever you go?

By being reminded of my past, I’m reminded that I have a past. And it extends much further back than my lifetime. When I was old enough to understand, my aunt walked me to the places in Paris where my family members had been apprehended to be deported to the horrors of the Holocaust from which they never returned. My history became less abstract and self-centered, as it manifested in my teenaged eyes as solid and from beyond my self. Shortly afterwards, I took to looking up at night skies from the balcony in the 18th District- and then later in the West End of Portland- and ponder how time traverses through us. What we witness is our traversal through time.

Histories of the places in which we live become our histories, too. In their own ways, my articles about lost streets are a form of reportage from a life that comprises past and present- not so much as parallels, but a juxtaposition of experiences. Indeed, the present is the dynamic reality. The past formerly played that role of living events and thoughts that occupied the spaces I see today. This has long fascinated me- even since childhood. I would walk past places where something either had happened that scared me- or something I longed to see happen again- and I’d imagine how the only separation between then and now was time. The place and person are still here. Or are they? How similar is the place, and even more so, am I really the same person? By name, yes. But perhaps, as the streets may only be the same by name, they too have changed- even though I recognize them. What appears familiar is in constant transformation, and time is what effects the transition. Reminders point to the realities of our histories.

A scenario, a lived and familiar one to me, is waking in the middle of the night and sensing how alone I’ve often been in this big world, how it chills me to consider how so many of those who knew me as family are gone. It is the soul’s passage through darkness. Then come remembrances of people past, followed by times and opportunities past. These no longer exist. But I remember, and thus the individuals and events are preserved. It is the mind’s navigation through treacherous shoals. Fears must be winnowed away from commemorations, and as horizons regain visibility clear memory remains a worthwhile asset. In remembrance is the preservation of history. Nothing deepens a soul like an inheritance of ennobling continuum. And in the midst of all that demands and distracts, what are the todays that will be recalled tomorrow? What things am I passing up on right now that I’ll regret later? Of course I want to know. At the same time, the appropriately balanced thing to do is to keep gratitude in mind for well-seized opportunities.

My role as an archivist involves the absorption of memory. There are the recollections of those who daily enlist my assistance, the artifacts that require my interpretation, and the accessions that I seek out and document for future reference. At times it seems as though I am “remembering” things that predate me. The idea of “being memory” has arisen in my thoughts when I realize all an individual person can keep alive. My good archival education bids me to remember accurately and in context. Sure it’ll be authentic, but it may not always be impartial. Such is human life! In unique and iconographic ways, we are remembrances for ourselves and for others. Consider how many strong recollections remain at the surface, strung together as floating waterway barriers that signify navigable areas. Just as places and objects ignite memories, so can circumstances. The other day, recollections of “first days” in new and unfamiliar environments came to mind. My own history of introductions to new schools, new groups, and jobs. Those fresh first impressions that begin with acquaintances and orientations. After enough years of having to adjust to the jadedness and cynicism I’d find around me, I’d wonder at the possibility of my being naturally naïve. Evidently there is something I should have known all along and have yet to figure out.

Remembrance is the voice that cries in the wilderness of an amnesic world. And yet again, retrospection must not be permitted to take the form of a cudgel, neither should hindsight lead to animosities. Indeed, a two-edged sword that is better to have than to lose; better to manage than to crumple under. Archival records, authenticated, stand as evidence of the events and lives documented. The historic and accurate have the power to vindicate against adversity. And well-serving memories can prevent pitfalls previously surmounted. It is how we can recognize situations and connect them with ground already explored. When remembering my experiences of endurance- at times outlasting, or at other times transcending difficulties, my recollections become gratitude. Memory can constructively validate, and the earned payback is one’s own, deepened voice. Perspective can be the determining factor for what boards the vessel of advancement into the future. What will be remembered?

archives

“The sheer bulk of modern records
makes their destruction inescapable.
The difficulty is to decide wisely and well
what shall be destroyed
and what shall be retained.”

~ William Kaye Lamb, The Fine Art of Destruction



One of those things only I would be able to recognize and laugh at, is noticing that whenever I tenaciously clean my desk area at home, I’ll do the same sort of cleaning at work- or vice-versa. It seems that if I want to clarify my thinking, the effort manifests across the boards. Years ago, when my office-studio included a darkroom, one evening while at home it occurred to me how my kitchen resembled the photo lab. Right down to the little bulletin board above the light switch. Organizing baking utensils seamlessly mirrored how I kept printing and developing tools at the ready. One of the downsides to having many avocations mixed with vocations is how each involve accumulations.


And I’ve had to focus my pursuits, prioritize how I can try dividing the time I have, and then make space by giving away what is no longer useful. In the progress of living, we invariably learn that we can’t keep everything. I’ve found that I can do many things- but surely not everything. And would I want to, anyway? More than proving multi-tasking prowess, there is greater sublimity in selectivity and simplicity. Accumulations and collecting manifest in many forms, including the tools and results of our crafts, mementos, and assemblages of our thoughts. And equally, we can bury ourselves with both material and mental agglomerations, especially without some boundaries. Aspirations are not to be bound, not as we might exercise the confines of schedule and space. Limiting personal aggregations are separate from the detriment of limiting one’s perspective and aspirations. But how else to know one’s figurative limits, aside from lived realities? Being always younger than the majority of my colleagues, over the years, I’ve seen how many establish their limits. I’m also aware not to resign myself to limiting my sense of exploration and anticipation- choosing not to be sunk by cynicism. Doing this seems to require a vigilance similar to that of cultivating a body of work, or a craft. Looking at the work I do so intently, it has been occurring to me how there are theoretical connections between the different skills I practice and the spiritual vocation I’m called to express and pursue with my life.

Theory and practice: what we say and what we do; one can evaluate the other- and surely this is inevitably how we are evaluated. Momentarily speaking from the standpoint of a fulltime working archivist, it seems that archival theory has some application to this double-theme of managing excess. It seemed ironic to me, that while I’ve been organizing major historic collections, having the charge of one such department, and even traveling the region instructing the curatorship of archives, that my life apart from work should occasionally find itself in disarrays of paper heaps and jumbled thoughts! Why keep what neither serves nor informs? If simplicity helps me think more clearly, than it’s worth the effort to assiduously keep things simple and purposeful. For a curator of the soul, there are “collections management” issues that are really the same as those affecting document archives.

In graduate school, we studied texts by Sir Hilary Jenkinson, one of modern archival theory’s innovative minds. Jenkinson entered the field in the aftermath of World War I, when the antiquated profession found itself unprepared to deal with a massive proliferation of manufactured documents. A bit like today. Suddenly, the profession had to engage in the unprecedented obligations of selecting materials for preservation- and for disposal. Jenkinson posed the question, “What is the criterion for destruction?” “There,” he added, “is the starting-point of criticism.” The crossroads, in any matter, are what get us thinking. From there, we join a continuum of advocacy for the historic record, while also evaluating documentation against context. At the prospect of reaching his archival terra incognita, Jenkinson suggested keeping “destruction diaries,” that would inventory and thus represent what had been deemed documentary chaff. Decades later, with tested records-management policies long in place, W. Kaye Lamb added that while controlling quantity, archivists needed to keep open minds regarding future potential uses of the documents in our spheres of stewardship and carefully focus preservation energies on unique and informative collections. We all have only so much space and time- for an institution it may be shelves and laborers, and for a human soul there are limits on what we “give place” to, in our hearts and thoughts*.

Now consider what archival methodology has to teach about managing the extraneous. How to minimize and dispose of things and thoughts that obstruct my vision of sources that have actually strengthened me through struggles and false starts in this life. When I’m in the role of archival consultant, seemingly “parachuted” into incorrigible messes of heaped volumes, deteriorated ledgers, and rolled up embrittled maps, documents, and pictures... I begin with a survey. Resisting the impulse to stand still in overwhelm, surrounded by dusty and unlabeled piles in acidic boxes and bags (paper and plastic), I simply list what types of materials I can find- by format- getting a sense of what I’m dealing with. On such a cursory pass, I only move the stuff so I can see what there is, and to do some quick measuring. Each area and wall gets a name, like “3rd floor, north wall,” for example, so I can at least retrace my steps. All the complex strategies, labor-intensive processes, and researching follows. During those surveys, I make myself able to visualize the whole mess as a trim, finished, and indexed collection. Subsequently there are all the procedures for developing, presenting, and maintaining these collections, always looking for what may need additional conservation.

Likewise, for the archives of the soul, there will always be collections to manage, to groom, to verify, so they can be referenced well. A constant method, if you will, is that of maintenance: the tending of the soul. We are ever collecting information and impressions, and discarding them. Being our own curators implies an assessment of the vitality and value of our own inner archives of anecdotal thoughts, attitudes, and perspectives. After the type of triage I’ve described, which is needed when organizing a neglected corpus of unfocused accumulation, the follow-through comes in the forms of careful upkeep and watchful acquisition. Subsequent accessions are to be considered in light of the integrity of existing collections, their context, and pertinence. To appropriate again from Jenkinson, what you uphold must warrant your “physical and moral defence.” It may be an influence, an affiliation, a demand, an accumulation held too long after its records life-cycle, or some other burdensome digression. Here is where it becomes easier to shard away what can’t be used, by comparing whatever that is, to what is needed in order to progress to a wholeness that is a benefit to others, self, and true to a sacred vocation.

In this context, it makes a world of sense to dispose of these types of space-consuming inner archives, or even to make the effort to remove a pervading destructive consciousness of collected thoughts. But that is far easier said than done, and if what remains for a while is a Jenkinsonian “destruction diary,” then so be it- but let it be inconveniently shelved. In a spirit of trust, the obsolete and useless collections will ultimately be vanquished. The anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing observed how daunting distractions can get for those who “take up the contemplative work of love.” He advocated a healthy detachment from things material and even spiritual, from situations and projects both good and ill. “To put it briefly, during this work you must abandon them all beneath a cloud of forgetting.” In so bold an effort, repressive hindrances are effectively neutralized. A mindset of hopelessness leads nowhere and the antidote is trust in the Immutable, realizing how the Divine indeed manifests in our lives. This kind of mindfulness keeps us aware of the strength needed to artfully de-accession the records we don’t need. And in the yield there will be space for newer and more relevant archives.

* Ephesians 4 : 25-27