While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.
*****
“Even the clearest memories become wind.”
———Hanif Abdurraquib
——--A Little Devil in America
Yolanda’s voice comes to me by way of a network of cell towers that stretches across the country. “Agnes died this year.”
I burn with embarrassment. “Who?”
Yo and I lived across the hall from each other through most of undergrad. She’s the keeper of our details, given the trauma-induced dissociation of my Pomona College years. Even though we’re elders now, she often mentions Dr. Agnes Jackson, whom I’m ashamed of not remembering because Yo is reverential when she speaks of Agnes.
During another of our regular calls, Yo laughs with recognition at a comment I make. “You learned that from Agnes.”
I did? “Agnes … I vaguely remember…” I want that to be true. I feel like a failure, not knowing how to remember.
I didn’t know how to be a college student, how to give answers in American Lit Seminar or live independently in a dorm. I ran away a lot, skipping American Art & Architecture to sneak home on the Greyhound, even though home was more painful than campus.
Yo says, “You never missed Agnes’s class. Girl, you had that head down, going across campus to spend time with Agnes.”
I sense the shadow of an almost memory—books in my arms, the motion of my body walking in the direction Yo describes, toward a safe place hidden in that shadow.
“Agnes said you were a writer.”
She did?
And how does Yolanda know? Did I confide it to her over every-Friday dining hall hamburgers? My constantly swirling shame settles. I grip the phone tighter, craving Agnes. When my mind reaches for her, it closes around empty space.
Agnes aches like a missing limb.
*****
“Even the clearest memories become wind.”
———Hanif Abdurraquib
——--A Little Devil in America
Yolanda’s voice comes to me by way of a network of cell towers that stretches across the country. “Agnes died this year.”
I burn with embarrassment. “Who?”
Yo and I lived across the hall from each other through most of undergrad. She’s the keeper of our details, given the trauma-induced dissociation of my Pomona College years. Even though we’re elders now, she often mentions Dr. Agnes Jackson, whom I’m ashamed of not remembering because Yo is reverential when she speaks of Agnes.
During another of our regular calls, Yo laughs with recognition at a comment I make. “You learned that from Agnes.”
I did? “Agnes … I vaguely remember…” I want that to be true. I feel like a failure, not knowing how to remember.
I didn’t know how to be a college student, how to give answers in American Lit Seminar or live independently in a dorm. I ran away a lot, skipping American Art & Architecture to sneak home on the Greyhound, even though home was more painful than campus.
Yo says, “You never missed Agnes’s class. Girl, you had that head down, going across campus to spend time with Agnes.”
I sense the shadow of an almost memory—books in my arms, the motion of my body walking in the direction Yo describes, toward a safe place hidden in that shadow.
“Agnes said you were a writer.”
She did?
And how does Yolanda know? Did I confide it to her over every-Friday dining hall hamburgers? My constantly swirling shame settles. I grip the phone tighter, craving Agnes. When my mind reaches for her, it closes around empty space.
Agnes aches like a missing limb.
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