re: you look like a memory

memory of looking at a memory

After posting you look like a memory, I panicked so much I ended up almost passing out at work. This is unrelated to the rest of the post, but I thought it was a fun little fact to start off this post.

my redrawing of “cócegas - josé malhoa” in MS Paint

So: hi! Welcome. On today’s On Writing, we’re looking (ha) at:

you look like a memory

i. other things that look like memories, other things that look like love

It’s hard for me to come up with a cohesive list of recommendations for this one since I am both inspired by works that discuss memory and works that discuss love. So instead of going for a cohesive list, here is a comprehensive list.

previously mentioned and here again (a memory!):

• untitled thread by killdads

This rewired how I approach all my relationships. Sometimes loving someone is also accepting their love.

• Is love a feeling? Or is it a choice? by acutelesbian

One of my favorite posts about love, ever. This is probably the number one strongest opinion I have about love; I think there are a billion types of love, but every single one has to at least partially be a choice.

• the girl, so confusing version with lorde by Charli xcx ft. Lorde

Because without this song, this essay wouldn’t exist! I miss you j.p., r.s., j.m., and g.l. You were all my girl, so confusing at some point and also just my girl at some point. I love you still!

more on memories:

• The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

The more a person recalls a memory, the more they change it. Each time they put it into language, it shifts. The more you describe a memory, the more likely it is that you are making a story that fits your life, resolves the past, creates a fiction you can live with. It’s what writers do. Once you open your mouth, you are moving away from the truth of things. According to neuroscience. The safest memories are locked in the brains of people who can’t remember. Their memories remain the closest replica of actual events. Underwater. Forever.

I first found this quote on tumblr and checked out Yuknavitch’s book the next day. It took me three weeks to read it because I’d have to put it down every couple of chapters to stare at a wall and try not to cry. This was the first paperback I ever bought for myself so I could scribble lines under my favorite lines. I think Yuknavitch’s writing style might be one of the biggest influences on my own.

• Interview #68 by Shastra Deo, interviewed by Sumudu Samarawickrama

I think ghosts are memory — memory haunts bodies, haunts places, haunts the narratives that hold our minor and miraculous lives together. Ghosts are that which return and return and return. The body has its own hauntings, too: phantom limb sensation, organ transfer memory, the traumatic self. And others.

• ghosts where time is thin by corvidaedream

Ok… this one isn’t about memory. But I never let the above quote go without this one, too. I think they work well together.

• Fish in Exile by Vi Khi Nao

God is fucking with my oblivion. If he wants forgiveness, he shouldn’t have given us memory.

I actually found this book while writing this essay and ended up loving every line.

more on love:

• Rural Boys Watch The Apocalypse by Keaton St. James

"Think it'll hurt?" I ask as another three stars
shudder & fall away.
You grip my hand tighter. "Hope not."

I read this poem years ago and still go back to it regularly. Beyond just recommending it here, this poem is one of my go-to recommendations for anything. I don’t even have the words to describe how much I adore this one.

• Eli Harke
  ’s take on love

Someone once said that hell is other people, but I think heaven can be, too.

I love Eli’s writing so much and I remember reading this note and feeling blasted to pieces by that last line.

• Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.

I’ll be honest… I haven’t read the full book yet. But this quote is everywhere and I think of it so often it would be wrong to not include it.

• 100 Small Acts of Love by The New York Times

Nothing makes me feel so hopeful about love in the world as this article.

• Boats & Birds by Gregory and the Hawk

I love this song and I think the idea of letting someone go and still loving them despite them no longer being in your life anymore is something I wanted to capture in my own essay.

• The knife of letting go by

  Amanda Yen

I hope they go to all the places we once dreamed of seeing together. I’m okay with knowing I won’t be there with them. I’ll still be there when they need me.

I came across this essay after I posted my essay, but something about Amanda’s experience with something similar (but not quite) really touched my heart.

• collisions of past & future by

  Jesse

It's weird to miss a person when they're right in front of you.

I think of this as a twin essay to you look like a memory now because one is about the before of losing a friend and one is about the after and yet somehow, in both, there is still love for the friend. And there isn’t ever a true “loss”, either. (Also

Jesse

is my writer-twin).

ii. you look like love

I wrote you look like a memory in basically one sitting, so unfortunately I don’t have any cut lines from the drafts to share this time. However, I wanted to use this second section to go into some of my intentions behind specific lines.

I’m obsessed with what people restack from me. Every post I write, there are lines that I think people will restack and then don’t and there are lines that I think people will not restack and then do. I’ve gotten around five comments all with the similar sentiment of “you look like a memory came out at the right time — I am going through something similar” and it baffles me that so many different people can be experiencing the same thing at once (and I guess I’m also one of those people seeing as I got that text from my friend after I had wrote the post). Selfishly, I love these comments because it also makes me feel less alone.

But I won’t lie — I’m surprised by how many people think of you look like a memory as a piece about loss and grief. I’ve always loved seeing the different interpretations of my writing and I think that’s one of the best parts because something can have equal yet different value to two different people. But it does surprise me to see people resonating more with the parts that are more about grief when my intention was for the essay to be a love letter.

I know grief so well it feels synonymous with my existence, but when it comes to you, there is no grief at all.

I think it’s really interesting that what gets restacked more often is “I know grief so well it feels synonymous with my existence” on its own. A lot of quotes that float around are half-finished (“blood is thicker than water”, “Jack of all trades”, “curiosity killed the cat”) and the second part is very intentional because I feel being able to accept someone’s impermanence in your life and still enjoy their presence is also love, in a way.

I want to say: I promise I’ll remember you fondly. I don’t because it feels more intimate than a confession.

Genuinely, I think saying “I promise I will think of you in a good light forever” is a thousand times more filled with love than just “I love you.” To me, love has always been a choice.

(Do you forgive me for letting go? I know you do)

I think of this thread by killdads on how painful it must be for the other person when you think of yourself negatively through their eyes. It’s one of those things you read that eventually seeps into your belief system. It’s really difficult sometimes to treat ourselves with kindness, but I think sometimes to love someone who loves you is to love yourself, too.