Icarus dreaming # 6

bifurcation

Bifurcation is one of those wonderful words we come across from time to time. A word which leaves a wistful trail of nostalgia, if I had taken that fork in the road not this, if I had been more determined in decisions, if I had, if, if, if..., and then we have the bifurcatory solipsism of personal reflection and questioning. Not this is the route I took but did I take the route I really wanted (and indeed do we ever know what that route is?). Freud suggest that as we get older we don't seek the new but mourn the past, we become more interested in autobiography than seeking new desires. And in that autobiographical mode, we spend time deliberating our own solipsistic route, highlighting the highs and the notches on the CV, carved with a penknife, with great care and attention to detail, until it becomes a memoir of justification. And yet the shibboleth of post-Freudian autobiography is his, 'Tell me who you desire and I will tell you your history...' because we want to ring fence what we know instead of seeking the new, which is a safe replacement for ongoing challenges, while we become more conscious of what is lost along the way. There is so much that will always be impossible to know, but we do know that we were once ourselves; the question is, does the narrative of our projected future of nostalgia reflect what we once were? Or is it simply the manipulation of a projection on the screen, for the benefit of a better story we can tell others? I have come to like Linda Gregg's poetry and it is this poem that got me thinking about this post:

Adult 

I’ve come back to the country where I was happy

changed. Passion puts no terrible strain on me now.

I wonder what will take the place of desire.

I could be the ghost of my own life returning

to the places I lived best. Walking here and there,

nodding when I see something I cared for deeply.

Now I’m in my house listening to the owls calling

and wondering if slowly I will take on flesh again.

Then again there is always time for Marie Elena: