Memorial Drive

19 December 2020: "I am looking directly at the photographer, toward a new idea of absence, of phantom ache--knowing nothing about how potently once might come to feel it." --Natasha Trethewey, Memorial Drive

Only about half-way through this extraordinary memoir, but I keep marveling at every page. The metaphors, the allusions, the painful search and examination it represents for its author. I knew Trethewey as a poet, of course, but it's such a treat to see her bring that voice to a different (linked) genre. 

In the passage above, she sets up a metaphor that she will keep coming back to as she tells the story of her mother and her violent death: the phantom pain one feels when they lose something. Here its beautifully and heartbreakingly prescient, showing how the present/future cannot help but color our memories of the past. How do I look at pictures of Ryan, for instance, without thinking about how it would all end? It can be done, but it takes effort, work, and reflection.