This weekend, my parents moved out of the house I lived in from end of 4th grade until my sophomore year of college, the only house my little sister remembers. It doesn’t much resemble the house I knew in 1978 - except for the front door in the same unused place and slightly shorter-than-standard staircase that I routinely either stumbled on or jumped completely when feeling adventurous - but my old room1 is in the same place, looking onto the still relatively secluded road out front. Every time I visited home as an adult, long after my fire hazard bulletin board of posters & clippings came down,2 I felt like I was in another world. Partly because I was - a small town is practically its own planet, and mine was a small Dutch-settled Navy town where our family was known for both connections, in addition to my grandpa’s [in?]famous wrecking yard.3 But it was also a world where I was safe and taken care of, where I was noticed4 and appreciated in ways that felt different from the safety, care, notice and appreciation I get from friends, boyfriends, eventual husband. Maybe the difference is the unconditionality in a first home - despite the occasional digs about hairstyle or wardrobe choice5 and reprimands about forgetting chores, I knew I had a trusted place to come back to, even if I was two minutes6 late. And in that place I could close my bedroom door and perfect my lip syncing to The Shangri-Las7, cry over Chicago records, plan in my journal how to spend my babysitting money, write in my journal about whomever I was crying over while listening to Chicago, compose (then intricately fold) notes to my best friends, and/or read Stephen King all night. Sure, I could still do those things at my grown-up home, but the real joy came from not having any other responsibilities besides schoolwork.8 Now when I want to do something frivolous or overdramatic, I have laundry to fold or errands to run. In my old house, no matter my age or status through the years, responsibilities fell away because my parents wanted to make me breakfast and hang out with the grandkids and throw my clothes in the wash with theirs. I’m glad to have my parents closer to my sister & I now, but I am going to miss that magical old place from my memory.
In poetry + music: I have long been a Shelley fan - of Percy + of his brilliant wife Mary, known best for Frankenstein and also the publisher of this short lyrical poem (among others he left behind), written shortly before he died in 1822. As an impressionable soap opera-fan teen, of course I was in love with the English Romantic poets - their rebellious emotions, their scandalous behaviors, their sexy Nature themes, their dying young. When I matured and understood more of what they were actually saying, I appreciated the ways they addressed how to best live in the world - still in that carefree/careless youthful way, but with an eye to making a difference.
What I especially love about this unusually brief work by Shelley is how he invokes despairing imagery of death (soft voices die…violets sicken…rose is dead…thou art gone) in order to remind us, gently & kindly, of what remains: Music vibrating, odours that live in senses, love slumbering on in a bed of roses. Our memories are worthy, useful, necessary, even if painful and heartbreaking.
There are numerous recordings of this poem set to music as well, which makes beautiful sense. Here is my favorite, featuring a singer who reminds me of The Phantom of the Opera with his soulful, melancholic voice - a perfect choice for some of Shelley’s ultimately last loving words9.
Music when Soft Voices Die (To --) by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.In movies: My husband heard the story of this Oscar-nominated10 documentary, The Eternal Memory, on NPR/RadioWest and had me add it to our watchlist. Anytime my man - more a fan of literally anything happening in the garage over even slightly artsy stuff - tells me about a book, album, show, or movie he’s interested in, I make note. In this case, I immediately found it streaming and we had dinner on the couch to watch together.
This is more than simply a documentation of a man’s deterioration through Altzheimer’s, though we do see that through the lenses of filmmaker Maite Alberdi as well as Augusto’s wife, Paulina Urrutia (Pauli). The emphasis throughout is on the love and care that this couple have shared - with each other, their friends, his children, and also their country. Because Augusto Góngora was a journalist in Chile from the 1970s through the 1990s, we revisit the tumultuous, terrifying history of that time.
The movie is not told in a chronological way, nor is it particularly linear, which I think is an intriguing way of reminding us how our minds work even when not affected by a devastating disease. Like revisiting feelings of childhood when stepping into a former home, like hearing music vibrate in us after soft voices die, we return to past moments dozens of times every day. Often we don’t know when or how a memory will be called up; sometimes we are unexpectedly affected by the power of a memory. Sometimes we can’t explain what is happening in our minds, but we know how we feel. This film is reminding us to remember, as long as we can. Then we must help each other, however we can.
Minus the blood red carpet I picked out when it was being built, a curiously bold choice that somehow my parents honored.
Not in a fire, to be clear, despite my firefighter dad’s constant concerns.
I was once pulled over for speeding in my hometown and the officer congenially said “Oh, is your grandpa Doc?” I nodded and smiled, breathing a sigh of relief at the recognition. Then he handed me my ticket.
Usually positively, with an occasional “That’s what you’re wearing?” which I think is a mandatory question in the ‘80s Parenting Handbook, for good reason.
Bangs covering my eyes, ripped jeans, and black Converse high tops were my transgressions.
When I was 18, in college. Then my baby sister had no curfew in high school…STILL BITTER.
Yes I did flawlessly reprise my very thorough routine while re-listening to this song.
…which I usually did in class, on the bus, or in the Commons before school. Clearly I was not the heart of the high school social scene.
Incidentally, Shelley wrote often of memory and legacy, though not typically with the optimism he lands on here; this analysis gives a touching example of how his perspective changed from To a Skylark in particular.
I’m writing this pre-Academy Awards broadcast like a Smart Professional Writer Person so maybe it’s a winner! Either way, you must weep through it see it. Apologies for constantly imploring you to watch things that will make you sob, but they are profoundly beautiful also and so, I think, necessary.
I hope if one of us succumbs to dementia and memory loss, we will handle it with the grace of Augusto and Pauli