Exhibition of Memories
February 20, 2018 9:40 PM Subscribe
The Museum of Broken Relationships. "Before flying to Zagreb, I’d put out a call to my friends—What object would you donate to this museum?—and got descriptions I couldn’t have imagined: a mango candle, a penis-shaped gourd, the sheet music from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 3, a clamshell drilled by a dental student, an illustration from a children’s book that an ex had loved when he was young—showing a line of gray mice with thought bubbles full of the same colors above their heads, as if they were all dreaming the same dream."
Previously.
I read this article over the weekend when it was making the rounds, and it renewed my desire, probably sparked by that initial post or something else I read here, to submit something to the museum. I started writing up something I wanted to send in, but just dwelling on it at all made me tired (though luckily I'm well past the point with any such artifacts now that they would actually throw me off balance emotionally). That said, just writing this out brought to mind a different object to submit, one that probably does belong in a museum. I'll have to figure out where I put the accompanying card...
posted by limeonaire at 10:09 PM on February 20, 2018
I read this article over the weekend when it was making the rounds, and it renewed my desire, probably sparked by that initial post or something else I read here, to submit something to the museum. I started writing up something I wanted to send in, but just dwelling on it at all made me tired (though luckily I'm well past the point with any such artifacts now that they would actually throw me off balance emotionally). That said, just writing this out brought to mind a different object to submit, one that probably does belong in a museum. I'll have to figure out where I put the accompanying card...
posted by limeonaire at 10:09 PM on February 20, 2018
Anyway, I really enjoy stories like this—loves lost, mistakes made, things unsent or left unsaid, memories with no outlet, stuff our friends and society at large would prefer that we gracefully forget. One of the best conversations I recall having with a former writer friend was when she confirmed that she too had never stopped periodically dreaming of past loves. I'm sorry to tell you this, any former boyfriends or paramours or whatever who might come across this, but whoever you are, there's no doubt you've become a character in a story in a dream of mine at some point or another. Hell, I had a dream like that last night. Take heart: You were probably your best self there, the person I remember from when I was 16 or 18 or 21 or whenever, from when I liked you in the first place, before it all went wrong. You probably still have all your hair in my dreams, o callow youth!
If ever I told you I loved you, I surely meant it, no matter what might have gone on from there, and you're in my head and my heart, regardless of whether either of us would prefer that to be the case, heh. That might be overly romantic, and stalker theory says STFU about it, 'cause society polices who's allowed to care about other people and suggests that out of sight should be out of mind—but that's how it is for me. Worst-case scenario, how else can we learn if we don't remember? Inasmuch as this probably on some level reinforces the stereotype of women getting into things because their significant others liked them, I have always tried to learn the ways of those I let into my heart. I'm sure the answerers of many an Ask MetaFilter question would just roll their eyes and chalk this one up to "boundary issues," but eh. To me, acknowledging the imprint we each make upon others, or that others make upon us, isn't a bad thing. I believe the people and things we choose to bring into our lives for any length of time matter, on a level well beyond the superficial. It's also clear enough to me that if one lives long enough, even as a serial monogamist, it's entirely possible and in fact probable to love more than one person in a lifetime.
Oddly enough, this reminds me of an exchange at a funeral in Battlestar Galactica.
posted by limeonaire at 11:07 PM on February 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
If ever I told you I loved you, I surely meant it, no matter what might have gone on from there, and you're in my head and my heart, regardless of whether either of us would prefer that to be the case, heh. That might be overly romantic, and stalker theory says STFU about it, 'cause society polices who's allowed to care about other people and suggests that out of sight should be out of mind—but that's how it is for me. Worst-case scenario, how else can we learn if we don't remember? Inasmuch as this probably on some level reinforces the stereotype of women getting into things because their significant others liked them, I have always tried to learn the ways of those I let into my heart. I'm sure the answerers of many an Ask MetaFilter question would just roll their eyes and chalk this one up to "boundary issues," but eh. To me, acknowledging the imprint we each make upon others, or that others make upon us, isn't a bad thing. I believe the people and things we choose to bring into our lives for any length of time matter, on a level well beyond the superficial. It's also clear enough to me that if one lives long enough, even as a serial monogamist, it's entirely possible and in fact probable to love more than one person in a lifetime.
Oddly enough, this reminds me of an exchange at a funeral in Battlestar Galactica.
Laura Roslin: "I like this service."I'm glad the museum exists as a place to memorialize objects and memories one can't—but must—set aside. Maybe this is also not what one is supposed to do, but I've kept basically everything anyone ever gave me, in that proverbial shoebox under the bed. (Realistically, I'm not sure where it all is, since some of my stuff I'd been storing got shuffled around during my parents' divorce, but I mean, I bet I still even have the scrawled notes from my first boyfriend in eighth grade somewhere.) By no means is most of it worthy of a museum—I agree with the museum's approach, which suggests you need a good story. But as I mentioned previously, while I'm not a materialistic person per se, a lot of my memories tend to be bound up in physical objects and visual recollections. So I keep these things that memory has imbued with meaning, at least until sweet nepenthe overtakes me and there's no one left to remember or care. And I write the story of my dreams most mornings, to perhaps someday revisit and rework into something greater.
Bill Adama: "It's not for me, I'll tell you that."
Laura Roslin: "I know, but I want you to know what I like."
posted by limeonaire at 11:07 PM on February 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
“I have a yellow and navy sundress,
maybe I'll wear it today.
It reminds me of you —
your favorite shade of blue.
Now the hem is coming out.”
posted by D.C. at 2:25 AM on February 21, 2018
maybe I'll wear it today.
It reminds me of you —
your favorite shade of blue.
Now the hem is coming out.”
posted by D.C. at 2:25 AM on February 21, 2018
an illustration from a children’s book that an ex had loved when he was young—showing a line of gray mice with thought bubbles full of the same colors above their heads, as if they were all dreaming the same dream
Tangential, but I know and loved this book as a child! It's about the importance of art and hope beyond mere survival, as Frederick the mouse gathers memories of summer sun and meadow greens while his bretheren gather food for winter. The image described in the article is the mice all imagining the colours Frederick describes to them in the dark of winter after the food has run low.,
It's called Frederick, and not only can you listen to it read aloud on YouTube, but it seems it was also featured in an animated short.
posted by dendritejungle at 2:44 AM on February 21, 2018 [13 favorites]
Tangential, but I know and loved this book as a child! It's about the importance of art and hope beyond mere survival, as Frederick the mouse gathers memories of summer sun and meadow greens while his bretheren gather food for winter. The image described in the article is the mice all imagining the colours Frederick describes to them in the dark of winter after the food has run low.,
It's called Frederick, and not only can you listen to it read aloud on YouTube, but it seems it was also featured in an animated short.
posted by dendritejungle at 2:44 AM on February 21, 2018 [13 favorites]
What dendritejungle said. Frederick is marvelous and one of the loveliest books I read as a child.
posted by GrammarMoses at 3:58 AM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by GrammarMoses at 3:58 AM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
The curatorial notes quoted Roland Barthes: “Every passion, ultimately, has its spectator…(there is) no amorous oblation without a final theatre.”Roland Barthes would practically be the genius loci of any such museum, one would think.
I'm reminded of Leanne Shapton's book of several years ago, Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:06 AM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
"I grew up with the sense that a broken relationship always amounted to more than its breakage—because it might have an aftermath, and also because everything that happened before it ended wasn’t invalidated by the fact of it ending; because those memories, the particular joys and particular frictions and particular incarnations of self it had permitted, hadn’t disappeared, though the world didn’t always make room for them."
Yesterday, my daughter asked me what makes a family heirloom. I told her it's what happens when we keep caring about an object's story. She's a terrible borrower of things, and behind her question was another one: if I borrow this thing that matters to you, will you be mad? Why, exactly, would you be mad? It's only a little pair of embroidery scissors shaped like a stork (but a pair given to me by an ex's mother, because she wanted to encourage my sewing. My daughter uses them now, not exactly carefully, but experimentally, and they'll become hers in some transformation of memory to everyday usage, an echo of a former loving relationship. I have nothing of his; but I have this artifact in my tiny and personal museum). No, sweetie, go ahead and use them. I'm not mad.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:16 AM on February 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Yesterday, my daughter asked me what makes a family heirloom. I told her it's what happens when we keep caring about an object's story. She's a terrible borrower of things, and behind her question was another one: if I borrow this thing that matters to you, will you be mad? Why, exactly, would you be mad? It's only a little pair of embroidery scissors shaped like a stork (but a pair given to me by an ex's mother, because she wanted to encourage my sewing. My daughter uses them now, not exactly carefully, but experimentally, and they'll become hers in some transformation of memory to everyday usage, an echo of a former loving relationship. I have nothing of his; but I have this artifact in my tiny and personal museum). No, sweetie, go ahead and use them. I'm not mad.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:16 AM on February 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
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