Palimpsest at a Time of Disconnection
This year, I am musing about memory and time, and how our personal lives intersect with history. This year, my thoughts are on memory and time as well as how our personal lives and history intersect. I felt it at Thanksgiving as we sat in the warmth and comfort with our family, while also feeling the fear that the world we know may be about end. I feel it as we gather to celebrate the holidays and everyone is teasing one another and sharing stories about family adventures. It’s not that we are hypocritical when we express our deepest fears about what lies ahead for immigrants and low-income earners in our country. We also fear for the future of democracy, the fate of Ukraine and the lack of real peace between Israel & Palestine. Our fears are real. I just finished Annie Ernaux’s The Years. Ernaux’s memoir is told in the first person and the third person: “we” or “she”. Ernaux uses old photos of herself with family and friends to connect 60 years of life with the events that were unfolding at the time the pictures were taken. In her words, it is an attempt to describe “a women’s destiny” and convey the passage of time both inside and outside herself. This resonates with the way I feel about living in and out time. Our lives will not be remembered beyond those who know us unless we do something great or horrible that is recorded in history. It’s a sobering thought, but it seems to be true. Ernaux also muses on the way we perceive time. We don’t even know how many days and hours we have left. With time, our memories of the past are thrown out of order. Some events are etched in our memory–where were we when we heard that President Kennedy had been killed? The image of the planes flying through the World Trade Center? And, for many, the birth of our children. Most of our personal histories are blurred over time, and we must do some mental digging in order to connect them to what was happening in our collective past. I remember how cold it was in January of 2009 because I remember going to the inauguration with my son who was 18 and had voted for the first time, but so many other memories of those years have no anchor in time or connection to history.
Though a bit depressing, Ernaux’s musings help put words to my feelings. I feel disconnected from the events that are unfolding in my country and around the world. I don’t even know what I am living in, and it is hard for me to imagine the future. I know I’m certainly not alone. I also find inspiration in Ernaux’s musings. Ernaux helps to explain why so many people refuse to retreat into their personal worlds. Ernaux is still driven to tell her own story and connect it to the history she lived in, despite the fact that we don’t know what people will remember about us. She uses a phrase to explain her motivation: “the palimpsest feeling,” which, she warns, is not a perfect match but I find useful. “Palimpsest” means a manuscript on which the original writing has been scratched out to make room for later writing but on which traces of the original–the underwriting–remain.
The “palimpsest” image is one worth holding onto in this disconnected time. It is a motivation for me to get out of my holiday bubble and connect with current events. Even if our marks on the book of time are erased, traces of our life will remain for those who follow us to help shape history, even if they only know our name from an annotation in a digital image. I want to leave a mark that will be remembered by my children and grandchildren. I want my children and grandchildren to be able to laugh at the holiday table about their family adventures. I also want other kids to have that same opportunity, perhaps partly because traces of things I did and said will remain. I hope that even after the memories and traces fade away, my children and grand-children will continue to leave their positive impressions in the manuscripts they pass on. Our actions will influence the appearance of the manuscript. The collective “we”, both of NHeLP, and the larger collective “we”, of our partnerships, are heading into 2025 with a determined determination to make a difference in the history being written. We will do everything we can to stop this time from being remembered as a retreat from the progress our country has made in achieving equity. We want to see everyone have access to health care, and to what they need to thrive. We don’t know how much time we have left, so we can’t waste it. I will continue to remind myself to live as a part of “we” and push out “I”. I invite you to follow suit.
