1. worldsfair
  2. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations: Seshadri's "Memoir"

The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations: Seshadri's "Memoir"

By bcohen on July 13, 2008.

Memoir

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.
The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.
If I wrote that story now--
radioactive to the end of time--
people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn't peel
the gloves fast enough
from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.
Your poor hands. Your poor eyes
to see me weeping in my room
or boring the tall blonde to death.
Once I accused the innocent.
Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.
I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.
And one October afternoon, under a locust tree
whose blackened pods were falling and making
illuminating patterns on the pathway,
I was seized by joy,
and someone saw me there,
and that was the worst of all,
lacerating and unforgettable.

By Vijay Seshadri

Tags
Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive

More like this

God and sex: two potent ideas that never get along well together
Imagine yourself in this situation. A young girl is accused of a heinous crime — use your imagination here, too, and think of the most horrible thing a person can do — and she is trapped in front of you, helpless. You have a rock in your hands. People around you are urging you to kill her; they say…
Bipolar Disorder: A View From the Inside
Illusions in Lavender was the most difficult story I ever tried to write. I must have set it down a dozen times, driven by the same reluctance I feel writing this post, now. No matter how much research or editing is involved, writing about experiencing a mental illness can never be easy--especially…
Tookie
Reposted from the old TfK. In Pete Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone, he tells this joke: A couple hundred years ago a shipwrecked sailor drifted for weeks till he saw land. He crawled up the beach not knowing what country or continent he'd landed on. He staggered up the bluff, and at the…
"A Partial History of My Stupidity"
I think the poem below, by Edward Hirsch, is in league with the one by Vijay Seshadri, "Memoir," posted a few months ago. Hirsch's was apparently inspired by the poem "Account," by Czeslaw Milosz. _____________________ Traffic was heavy coming off the bridge and I took the road to the right, the…

On life's humiliations:
In the not too distant past, I spilled coffee on a mother and her sleeping newborn baby while I was trying to wave to someone. It was cold coffee and I thought the cup was empty...but knowing those things does nothing to quell the humiliation and shame of doing it. Boy did that baby cry! Of course, it doesn't help that I continue to see this mother around my neighborhood and she looks at me like I'm a leper...or, I imagine that's what she's doing and really she has no idea who I am.