"Without a hurt the heart is hollow." So many of the lyrics like those above from "Try To Remember", the unforgettable song from the remarkably long running play "The Fantasticks" (1960-2002), are arrows of joyous sorrow, weapons of deadly delight, striking the heart unfailingly on target and they're not really uncommonly oxymoronic ones for we who incline heavily toward nostalgia and in equal proportions to its "what was" and "what might have been" components. The song is not the gentle semi-cynical take on youth of Maurice Chevalier's "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" ("Gigi", 1958). Though they're both wistful tunes, "Try To Remember" laments an earlier time and its ghosts as beloved brothers or sisters, forever "tender and callow", whom the old survivor and singer hopelessly longs to caress and somehow protect through remembrance and "following." Contrastingly, the iconic Frenchman's chant is primarily one of relief and liberation from the blunders and anxieties of one's immature days. Whose reminiscences are the truer ones? It would seem that they both partake of authenticity and wisdom, but they each represent a different world view: the former perhaps that of the poet, the latter that of the philosopher.
The past has often been treated, especially throughout much of America's history, with widely varying degrees of respect. As a nation born and bathed in the "hot springs" of revolutionary ardor, change and supposed progress has always been embraced, while dwelling on what was or has been dismantled or "turned upside down", has in many a case held very little interest for us. Short memories have resulted and these have, in many instances, been the enemy of true progress, though modern day "progressives" imagine that their denigration of the past is almost always good and necessary. The hidebound can and do stultify of course, as well. Also, with advancing years memories can fade and this can be a cruel irony of the presumed wisdom of Chevalier's character. Earlier in the film this is touched upon comically but emphatically in his duet "I Remember It Well" with Hermione Gingold. Perhaps it's not so much a matter of senescence gaining ground, but the human need, in constant dramatic tension with its counterpart remembrance, for that of forgetfulness. This may be a healthy psychic mechanism that allows one to "let go" and it surely heals or at least anesthetizes from what, in the past, may be too painful for some in the present. Those of us with the proverbial memory of an elephant are sometimes envied and cause even occasionally thinly veiled reactions that reveal no little irritation as in "How did you remember THAT?" The feelings are sometimes mutual, as the overly sensitive poets/elephants among us are not seldom filled with a longing as in "How did he/she manage to get past that old insult by so-and-so and how could he/she possibly forget it? What energy and drive he/she has to move on like that with his/her life!" This is not to suggest that those who can flush unpleasantness and other traumas from their memories are the only ones who can progress and succeed in the present and future. Some of us, those most depressed and weighed upon with cares and lingering memories (or chemical imbalances in their brains as modern science increasingly asserts), can and do create and serve up a storm of accomplishments, often precisely because of their afflictions. Called to mind are some of the the admirable and courageous known to history and relatively recently, from the entertainment field: Lincoln, Poe, Cole Porter, Christopher Reeve and Dick Cavett. They all soldiered on and gave (give) their best, displaying their demons never, except to share the art or wisdom born from their tormentors' crucibles.
Neither temperament nor nature is necessarily any more or less morally superior to the other. The problems begin perhaps, when either inclination shifts too decidedly towards its respective pole: remembrance or forgetfulness. What brings me down on the side of the "rememberers" is just an ineffable kinship with the past and what has, at least so far, been my possession of a good memory that I use to try to relive certain events because of a hope to learn from them. Admittedly though, there is a tremendous unwillingness to cease remembering and by extension, to discontinue loving someone or something. Honoring our dead and the deeds that helped to forge the world we live in now (not just military heroes) requires that we guard against consigning someone or something to oblivion. In this sense it is quite more than simply "nice" to remember. Still unimpressed by those enthralled by memories? Consider this simple example. What would Facebook and other similar phenomena of cyberspace be, in terms of their awesome power to attract followers without the human capacity to remember? Does someone "friend" you because they have forgotten who you are? No, remembrance, short of an obsessive mania to inhale every subatomic particle of a fond memory, is perhaps the greatest gift we possess as humans. Shared histories, stories and myths that bind a people and a race, events from a formative stage of one's development inextricable from a beloved grandparent or unique character and friend, all these and more comprise an almost unimaginably rich personal tapestry that depends utterly and completely on the life blood of memory. Yes, deep in December, along with a reliable source of physical warmth (whether an ancient hearth or electric blanket), this other warmth is most welcome and something beyond reassuring.
No comments:
Post a Comment