Autobiographical Memories

Following

Ben Hoare — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:34:10 +0000

I met my brother at Gloucester Road. Stone dinosaurs peered out as I ascended into a world he knew the map of, and which, years later, is still unknown to me. He knew the way; in awe I followed.

Ever since we played and fought together in our shared room, he has always been further into the world than me, reaching back to show me his way. And now that I have caught up and there is nothing left to teach, it is I who, jealously static, peers out of the dark at those bright beings moving through the world.

Flame

obandsoller — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:43:50 +0000

We were at the temple and the flame was brought round. My parents had told me it was god. I was supposed to touch it then raise my fingers to my forehead. I held my hands there deeper and longer there than was sensible and brought them away streaked with sooty shadows.

It didn’t hurt, but it shocked my mother. Perhaps I did it because I was bored by that place and the rituals that barely meant anything to me. I can’t recall. But if I did believe it was god, how could I choose other than to burn myself?

“Perfect”

Ben Hoare — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:08:05 +0000

We got there early, and had “a perfect day”. I recall sprawling in a garden, reading a linguistics book, evading a cat that shared the space. We went out on the sea, and a photograph jogs my memory of sitting by the beach.

Our happiness is something we’ve narrated and charged into pictures, so I cannot capture it; and these moments always seem lost, as though happiness is past. But it’s an illusion – today’s mundanity will one day be stored in nostalgic memory, a bestseller that stuck and got a new edition, with illustrations and introductions, changing what it is.

Adventure

Ben Hoare — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:43:32 +0000

Already that moment has been cast in narrative, packed with meanings I spouted spontaneously. I walked a straight road from Crystal Palace to Beckenham, tasting the rain and wondering why I drink anything else. Each car seemed to hesitate as it passed, considering offering rescue. But I refused even the rescue offered by telephone, denying my discomfort, needing to create a meaning that wasn’t negative.

These long walks are my adventures, rare pockets of pride in my memory. I will tell this story again, packing in new meanings, inventing new thoughts; but I will never forget the taste of rain.

God II

Tatjana Cocoon — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:57:30 +0000

Bored at the weekend, my best friend and I decided to have a look inside the local Methodist Church. We were 10, and it was only the second time I had been to church (the first being my baptism). We did not even get through the door.

We went to the back entrance, round an overgrown, narrow corner of the church. I almost peered through the window before screaming: “God’s in there!” We ran away, terrified of whatever was in the church. My friend said she had seen a ghost that resembled the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.

Was it God?

God I

Tatjana Cocoon — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:53:14 +0000

My first big experience of God was at the age of 5. Alone in my bedroom at night, I sat up in bed and looked out of the window at my dark back garden and the moon above it. I realised that one day, and probably in only 60 or 70 years, I would die. I believed in God, but as a child feared Him so much that the thought of my future death filled me with utter terror. I sobbed and clasped my hands in prayer, begging the moon (where I though God was) to let me live forever.

“Lost in the Supermarket”

obandsoller — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:33:30 +0000

I wasn’t part of a scene when I was younger. I just listened to whatever music they pumped into the stores that I wasted my time in, as I endlessly browsed the shelves I already knew the contents of. Most of the music was as vacuous as the wasted time, but occasionally I’d hear something that made me feel less disconnected, something I’d carry with me for weeks, waiting and aching for the next time I’d hear it. I used to think love was like that; that it would float into my life as simply, as unexpectedly, as unasked for.

Drunk

Ben Hoare — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:30:53 +0000

That first time, I was not drunk, but did not want to ruin the story we were telling ourselves. We had visited a death camp, where I performed my trauma, as was expected. That evening, I sipped my beer and tasted adulthood (I did not like it), then acted strangely on the way home, as I thought I should. I was on the brink of my future, and felt I had already lived so much; yet my photographs show a child, which is what I was to the adult who bought me my half-pint, knowing it would not harm me.

Holiday

Ben Hoare — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:29:24 +0000

The hens are in the courtyard, the air cool but not harsh, exactly like the first time we came here and stuffed the place with hopes for the future. But these are not the same hens, and the air has been transformed by countless organisms, I realise as I notice that the magazine mark where I killed a fly has been painted over. She is still with me, thank God; the nouns are the same but the adverbs have changed. The place has been preserved, but we do not re-live moments; we have changed and abandoned so much since then.

The Moon

Tatjana Cocoon — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:36:00 +0000

We lay in the field. I didn’t care what the crop was, but it rose above our heads. The moon looked down as we looked up. I said I wished people wouldn’t go to space as it ruins the mystery, like a woman applying make-up in public. You, however, like to know things.

The ground began to grow damp and the air was cold. I’m sure alcohol took care of that, and we felt happy, lying together for hours in darkness.

A massive beetle arrived so we left. In six years I would apply my make-up in front of you.