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Lost Words
Jun. 19th, 2012 02:17 pmThere are passages in books that can sear into one's memory - perfectly turned phrases that continue to haunt long after the book has been returned to the library or the bookshelf. This summer, I am continually thinking of this beautiful passage from Robert Hellenga's Sixteen Pleasures. The protagonist's mother, dying of cancer, alone on her bedroom records hours of memories into a tape player. After her death the family discovers that the tapes are blank - her voice had not been recorded through some mechanical error. This is Margot's thoughts on the loss of her mother's last communications:
All I know is that my life is filled with little pockets of silence. When I put a record on the turntable, for example, there's a little interval--between the time the needle touches down on the record and the time the music actually starts--during which my heart refuses to beat. All I know is that between the rings of the telephone, between the touch of a button and the sound of the radio coming on, between the dimming of the lights at the cinema and the start of the film, between the lightning and the thunder, between the shout and the echo, between the lifting of a baton and the opening bars of a symphony, between the dropping of a stone and the plunk that comes back from the bottom of a well, between the ringing of the doorbell and the barking of the dogs I sometimes catch myself, involuntarily, listening for the sound of my mother's voice, still waiting for the tape to begin. -- Robert Hellenga, Sixteen Pleasures.
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All I know is that my life is filled with little pockets of silence. When I put a record on the turntable, for example, there's a little interval--between the time the needle touches down on the record and the time the music actually starts--during which my heart refuses to beat. All I know is that between the rings of the telephone, between the touch of a button and the sound of the radio coming on, between the dimming of the lights at the cinema and the start of the film, between the lightning and the thunder, between the shout and the echo, between the lifting of a baton and the opening bars of a symphony, between the dropping of a stone and the plunk that comes back from the bottom of a well, between the ringing of the doorbell and the barking of the dogs I sometimes catch myself, involuntarily, listening for the sound of my mother's voice, still waiting for the tape to begin. -- Robert Hellenga, Sixteen Pleasures.
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