My Love...

1. Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (1971) cover


2. FAME IS A FORM OF INCOMPREHENSION, PERHAPS THE WORST


3 & 4. My Love,

New York, New York

1. T.C. Boyle's Stories (1999)


2. Photograph, New York



3. Reverse of photograph

I look up

....the canvas opens. The droning sound of the engines slowly vanishes as I'm shrouded in increasing darkness. The wind whizzes past, cut by my new umbellical cords. Without them life is short.
I realise up is the past, some fading lights in the increasing distance. Every cold breath more out of reach. Not that it was much of a home...more a steel tube, light in red and green. Uncomfortable...but it started out well...somewhere in a field. Aluminium aloy heated in a late summer's sun and a sky full of promise, life and challenge. How we marvelled at the sight before entering. Our metallic bird larger than life, invincible, our own epic saga and we'd only written our first line.
But that's in the past now....we took our stories on board and kicked them out, somewhere halfway through the first chapter. And there they are, floating left and right in silence...in crimson darkness. Going down.
I look down but all I see are my boots. I expected a light, a vague shimmer of earth, something terrestrial to ground me, a target, a landing zone, meaning....But I guess not. I wonder again why I jumped, we jumped...what intention we had...what mission, but I can't remember. I know others jumped too, left and right, soaring down from our big armada, but sofar no trees, no fields, no nervewrecking but exhilarating kick in the heels.
I wonder how long I've been afloat. It started out as seconds, an adrenaline rush, but I guess it must be days, ...or longer. There is no difference when I shut my eyes. I wonder if it matters, if not landing would change anything. No one is expecting us...not anymore. Quite frankly, what on earth is the use.
So....acceptance. I've given in to this...I rest at the absence of a past and I scorn the absence of a future. Part of me even relishes in this feeling with its undertones of freedom, so....Don't pity me...for I have accepted my liminal state...
...just don't think I do not have a story to tell.

The Jump-Off

First off, apologies for the artsy-fartsy address of this blog. Now I know that many who know me will have come to expect this sort of toffee-nosed, presumptuous behaviour from me, but you have to believe me: this time I was really out to do things differently. Low-key, unremarkable, with a minimum of posing that is. Unfortunately, a number of other internutters are hogging the perfectly apt address Lost & Found and a number of variants, which wouldn't have annoyed me so much if they were actually putting their blog to (good) use. Now we have "Yvonne", a "girl in her teen years" using up our alternative 'Forgotten Memories', who hasn't posted anything since March 2003 and may not even be a teen anymore for all we know.
So, I am asking for your forbearance and understanding in this matter, as I guess this blog will be starting off on an "O we're so very intellectual and we know it" tip after all. All I can do is promise that future content will be as free from snobbery as the address is full of it. Honestly.
So, what is the blog actually about? Basically, it is about random memorabilia that get wedged between the pages of a book, perhaps as a bookmark or just for temporary storage, are subsequently not removed from the book again by its owner, but rather are left to languish in this forgotten state, until Luc or I stumble upon said memorabilia by chance through a new second-hand acquisition. The things we have found in books over the years range from the mundane or quirky to the bizarre and astonishing, as this blog will detail. We intend to reconstruct as much as we can about the life history of the owners of the books and the memorabilia themselves on the basis of these scant but sometimes extremely rich lines of evidence. Join us on our attempts to tease out meaning from lost memories!