An Entirely Proustian Memory/خاطره ای به تمامی پروستی

سالی پیش، مرگ جوی چون آواری ابدی بر سرم ریخت. آن اندازه سنگین که تا به دردش دچار نشدم - درست دوماه پس از درگذشتش- بیرون نیامدم از زیرآوارش. آغازی به تمامی پروستی داشتیم. گمان ندارم که پایانی داشته باشیم اگرچه که برای ابد رفته است او و آرامش نگاهش و نرمی بوسه هایش. اما روزی در پاییز بود گویا که طرف خانه ی سوان به دست دیدمش نشسته در کافه ای با آن عینک و کلاه بافتنی همیشگی اش. طاقت نیاوردم. پروست بهانه ی آشنایی و گل دوستی مان شد. چندان دور نرفتیم؛ اجل مهلتمان نداد. اما رفتیم آن اندازه که به نام ها و جاها برسیم و نام جاها و جای نام ها را بگوییم برای هم. از موسیقی اصیل کره ای تا رازنو ی علیزاده را رفتیم باهم و برگشتیم به کافه اسپرانتزا تا باز برویم و برگردیم امیدوار که دیدم تنها من مانده ام و زمان از دست رفته

امروز نخستین سالگرد درگذشت جوی هست. به همین خاطر متنی را که سال گذشته برای پرسه و یادبودی که مادرش در زادگاهش می گرفت فرستادم، در زیرمی آورم

At this moment, this is the hardest job exactly at this moment to write about Joy. Because still I cannot believe that I am not able to see her anymore. I see her sitting at the café with all her beauty and her intellectual charm reading my favorite book, reading my Proust. But at this moment, at this very hard moment, to steal the words from Virginia Woolf, ‘I ask if I shall never see you again and fix my eyes on that solidity, what form will our communication take? You have gone across the court, further and further, drawing finer and finer the thread between us. But you exist somewhere. Something of you remains. A judge. That is, if I discover a new vein in myself I shall submit it to you privately. I shall ask what is your verdict? You shall remain the arbiter…I am at the zenith of an experience. It will decline. Already I no longer cry with conviction…the flight of doves descending, is over. I am no longer amazed by names written over shop-windows. I do not feel why hurry? Why catch trains? The sequence returns; one thing leads to another- the usual order.
Yes, but I still resent the usual order. I will not let myself be made yet to accept the sequence of things. I will walk; I will not change the rhythm of my mind by stopping, by looking; I will walk. I will go up these steps into the gallery and submit myself to the influence of minds like mine outside of the sequence. Here are pictures. Mercifully these pictures make no reference; they do not nudge; they do not point. Thus they expand my consciousness of her and bring her back to me differently.’

Here is a page of my diary of June the 10th. Drawings don’t have a date. Maybe a month or two before the June 10th at the hospital. I remember her beauty. But I will sing of her. I will sing for a later time of her profile and of her grace:

Joy is being reincarnated to a peach tree or a butterfly.
Yes I do believe in reincarnation if it could be a remedy for this grief. I miss you Joy…I miss you! I hope one day when you are a grown up tree I would be able to eat your fruits!