Post 13 Lyn Hejinian Memory

     In the excerpts of Lyn H.'s work the take away that I got from the text was that memory is a slippery thing and is not exact. This ambiguity is not presented as a bad thing however. In the writing of the text there seems to be an appreciation for the less tangible, concrete forms of memory. On p.7 Lyn H. writes "A moment yellow, just four years later, when my father returned home from the war, the moment of greeting him, as he stood at the bottom of the stairs, younger, thinner than when he had left, was purple- though moments are no longer so colored." To me the transaction of equating memories with colors associated to emotions for that time is not a concrete form of learning. Yet Lyn uses it in recalling her father coming home from war. I think that places value on a unique way of recalling important events. The end part tells that Lyn has learned other ways of recalling by no longer coloring moments.
    This moment shows how describing memories by association is valuable. Valuing ambiguity or openness is also shown on p.13 where Lyn writes "What follows a strict chronology has no memory." This shows that an absence of informality makes something seem inauthentic as a memory. Memories are not concrete, but more intangible in essence. "For me they must exist, the contents of that absent reality, the objects and occasions which now i reconsidered."  (p.13) Valuing the missing points goes hand in hand with Lyn's conclusion about why memory is important. "It was hard to know this as politics, because it plays like the work of one person, but nothing is isolated in history- certain humans are situations." (p.10). "You cannot determine the nature of progress until you assemble all of the relatives." (p.11).