We Remember

Lucille Clifton and Remembering Forward

Mar 04, 2022

they asked me to remember
but they want me to
remember their memories
and I keep on remembering mine.
Lucille Clifton, “why people be mad at me sometimes”

RE: Mwen Sonje (I remember/I miss)

Pafwa ‘m pa ka sonje.
E ‘m konnen li fè lòt moun fache.
Mwen sonje sa ki fè ‘m mal epi li sonje mwen.
Padon.
Mwen dwe mache tou dousman pou’m ka retounen nan tèt mwen.
Translation:
Sometimes I can't remember.
And I know it makes others angry.
I remember what hurt me and it remembers me.
Sorry.
I have to walk slowly to get back to myself.

I've been thinking a lot about how we are functioning. In this pandemic, in this extended state of emergency that we are all in and like we just don't know day to day, what to expect what's going to happen. (Not that we ever really knew.) And in a lot of ways, our world is constantly readjusting to a new normal, a new mode of survival, and it's exhausting. It's tiring and I'm tired. I'm so tired.

And there are a lot of ways in which I feel like I have tried to not so much ignore what has happened or what has passed. But there are ways in which I tell myself “I can do this.” There's no reason why I shouldn't. I should be able to function as I did before this pandemic began, I say.

But I realize that in a lot of ways that when I embrace that mentality, I'm lying to myself and I'm lying to everyone.

And one of the things that I find myself struggling with in this season is remembering. This remembering is always happening in my body. The forgetting is, too.

Going back into the classroom, it was hard to remember what it was like to function as a student before the pandemic. One, because I did so much work on myself. Sheltered in place, under pandemic restrictions, I realized that I do really well by myself when I can curate the space I feel safe to learn.

And I also did some work reading some books about pedagogy and learning and education. That really allowed me to see some of the ways that education is like our systems are broken. And being back in a place where I'm like, filled with this knowledge of myself and like in my body and intellectually as I enter the space, I find myself overwhelmed by what I have remembered and what I keep on remembering despite what is happening around me. And it seems, my memories have become a hindrance for me as I try to learn what they want me to learn.

So much has happened these past few years, but I will sit with what has rattled me since 2020. I still think about George Floyd, I still think about Breanna Taylor. I still think about Elijah McClain. I still think about Ahmaud Arbery. I still think about even all the ones before 2020 And like we continue in this space where like, the reality of death becomes ordinary. Black death becomes ordinary, like a routine part of life, which forces us to rehearse the same scripts of mourning.

It troubles me how easily others forget and grow desensitized. My mission in life is to be soft and to be soft is to remember.

We forget.

We forget to be sensitive to the pain of new death as they tally up the numbers of those who have died from COVID-19. I keep on remembering and I cannot forget. We forget and instead find a new language to describe what we’re experiencing, to emphasize what we can do to be more “productive.”

I’ve missed deadlines and forgotten to do assignments. But sometimes even in remembering what I must do mentally, physically I have had moments where I’ve forgotten how.

I forget people's names, I have always struggled with names. But in the isolation that was much of 2020-2021, I’ve forgotten whole friendships. The camaraderies I once maintained did not find their way back with ease. Some things I have forgotten quite happily, like the painful rituals of respectability my body now resists and grows ill from.

I am forming new memories every day. They do not make up for what is now foggy, but they are formed from the convictions shaped by what my body remembers.

In my language Haitian Creole, the word sonje—S-O-N-J-E, means “to remember” and “to miss” kind of like saudade in Portuguese, which also kind of means to remember and to miss or too long for. I'm reminded of Paulo Freire, who I'm learning from this semester. And his whole practice of “knowing the longing” and “seeking the being more.”

Remembering doesn’t draw us back to nostalgia that idealizes the past, but in these definitions, it’s formed by an eschatological hope: We remember forward. So in this season, I'm reminded by those who I'm studying, that I am not failing because of the hindrance that comes with remembering or longing. But these are the things that are helping me and guiding me towards the “being more” that we are all steering towards and heading towards. I am remembering forward.

I hope this simple meditation and reminder from Lucille Clifton, from Paulo Freire, from myself, helps you as you remember, and as you long for and as you miss, whatever it is, that you feel you're carrying as your failure, but in truth, it's not.

You haven't failed. Perhaps you, like me, are full of memories steering you towards the desire to shape belonging differently. To shape success differently. To live in this world differently.

As you remember, in past and present awareness, be gentle with yourself. I hope you land somewhere you can be held in the honest embrace of those who remember with you.