I loved the car showroom. Cracking those hard blue sweets between your teeth to gain time is the sort of detail a child files away without knowing why, and an adult would never think to go looking for.
And the smell vanishing the moment you take the test drive. That's the whole argument of the piece and you never have to make it.
"...after the anguish of the years with small children" ...Wow, so many writers feel this!
These were especially good Bagatelles. I did not know the psychiatric history of Proust or its role in the origin of his theory of involuntary memory.
I always muse on the lives of people who live in houses on train tracks and expressways. There are a bunch of houses right on the West Side Highway in Manhattan, near the George Washington Bridge, so close it feels like you can touch their windowsills (they aren't that close, of course). What must it be like to live there?
We put up walls and are suddenly far away from one another. It even works with tents, almost with picnic blankets. Is it real, or is it a mirage? Are the people beside the West Side Highway actually close to you? Or can they live there for a lifetime without ever even noticing the millions of people passing by? As always, thank you so much for your support, Lisa.
Just a chain link fence that separates them from one of the most congested roadways in America (Photo must have been taken at 5 am on a summer Sunday!) I can’t imagine what would go through the mind of someone choosing to live there but I can speculate. I’ve never seen a face at the window. Would probably drive off the road if I did. If you pan around this shot you get the full flavor. https://maps.app.goo.gl/42YdV8Hh1uhS8UFs7
"The scene is famous partly because it belongs to a monumental work, but also because the reader can so readily recognise the wonder of having an entire universe within oneself, ready to unfold as soon as the correct combination has been entered." Jorie Graham's poem "Sundown" popped into my head. She's walking along a beach in Normandy and a galloping horse triggers a series of memories that take her all the way back to her mother.
"He was tired of this sluggish existence, which had admittedly lasted only a few days, but possessed a life-denying monotony equivalent to decades." What a fabulous line from the Bagatelles piece at the beginning. You are a "born" writer, Jörgen.
Second of all, this triggered a lot of thought. I do believe that talent has something to do with it, but I can also say that it took me quite a while to find mine. I needed my 10 000 hours of practice first, writing about football/music/films/ephemera on the internet, before I dared to try fiction and poetry. Then it took me another 2 or 3 novels to begin finding something resembling the voice I have today. So I agree with you that I was born a writer. It just took me a while to get there.
Jörgen, there is a reason for famous quotes from masters of writing, well of any art, science, math ... the list would be endless -- about how they are still learning, still practicing, never finished with what they were born to do.
I believe those of us brave enough to spend 10,000 hours finding what they were born to do -- precisely, even within a broad category like writing, like you have done -- these people then spend years practicing, working in their chosen fields until they age and die. Think Marie Curie, for example. They also know how little they've mastered and must keep working at it.
It might take a while for us to find the path, but once we do, nothing can stop us from pursuing our crafts. It took me twenty years to find writing as what was "in my bones", and then it took twenty more of practice as a journalist and tech writer before I leapt into writing creative nonfiction and poetry. I hope I have another twenty years to practice the direction I headed five years ago.
Confucius wrote: "It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."
Famous American artist, Georgia O'Keeffe wrote: “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”
And to drive home the thought for myself, especially, I remember this one from Leonardo da Vinci. He might not have said it this exact way, but it surely rings true!
"A diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck to its job."
I think there's a special button to press if you're posting poetry. Oh, just thought...this isn't a post as such. Hmmm...not sure then. Anyway, it doesn't really matter because your poem is wonderful!
You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about education. But some good, sacred memory preserved from childhood – that is perhaps the best education. For if a man has only one good memory left in his heart, even that may keep him from evil…And if he carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe for the end of his days. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
One of the favorite books of my literature teacher in highschool..one book that he insisted on reading . Can't say I regret his insistences.
What a good teacher!
The best! Proust, Rilke, Homer and Eliade were those he insisted the most on knowing as best as we could.
This. All of this. Every word is a step toward revelation.
Thank you, Ellen!
I loved the car showroom. Cracking those hard blue sweets between your teeth to gain time is the sort of detail a child files away without knowing why, and an adult would never think to go looking for.
And the smell vanishing the moment you take the test drive. That's the whole argument of the piece and you never have to make it.
Thank you for being an attentive reader!
"...after the anguish of the years with small children" ...Wow, so many writers feel this!
These were especially good Bagatelles. I did not know the psychiatric history of Proust or its role in the origin of his theory of involuntary memory.
I always muse on the lives of people who live in houses on train tracks and expressways. There are a bunch of houses right on the West Side Highway in Manhattan, near the George Washington Bridge, so close it feels like you can touch their windowsills (they aren't that close, of course). What must it be like to live there?
We put up walls and are suddenly far away from one another. It even works with tents, almost with picnic blankets. Is it real, or is it a mirage? Are the people beside the West Side Highway actually close to you? Or can they live there for a lifetime without ever even noticing the millions of people passing by? As always, thank you so much for your support, Lisa.
Just a chain link fence that separates them from one of the most congested roadways in America (Photo must have been taken at 5 am on a summer Sunday!) I can’t imagine what would go through the mind of someone choosing to live there but I can speculate. I’ve never seen a face at the window. Would probably drive off the road if I did. If you pan around this shot you get the full flavor. https://maps.app.goo.gl/42YdV8Hh1uhS8UFs7
"The scene is famous partly because it belongs to a monumental work, but also because the reader can so readily recognise the wonder of having an entire universe within oneself, ready to unfold as soon as the correct combination has been entered." Jorie Graham's poem "Sundown" popped into my head. She's walking along a beach in Normandy and a galloping horse triggers a series of memories that take her all the way back to her mother.
"He was tired of this sluggish existence, which had admittedly lasted only a few days, but possessed a life-denying monotony equivalent to decades." What a fabulous line from the Bagatelles piece at the beginning. You are a "born" writer, Jörgen.
First of all, thank you so much.
Second of all, this triggered a lot of thought. I do believe that talent has something to do with it, but I can also say that it took me quite a while to find mine. I needed my 10 000 hours of practice first, writing about football/music/films/ephemera on the internet, before I dared to try fiction and poetry. Then it took me another 2 or 3 novels to begin finding something resembling the voice I have today. So I agree with you that I was born a writer. It just took me a while to get there.
It’s a journey. And a different one for everyone. But it’s a journey worth taking.
Jörgen, there is a reason for famous quotes from masters of writing, well of any art, science, math ... the list would be endless -- about how they are still learning, still practicing, never finished with what they were born to do.
I believe those of us brave enough to spend 10,000 hours finding what they were born to do -- precisely, even within a broad category like writing, like you have done -- these people then spend years practicing, working in their chosen fields until they age and die. Think Marie Curie, for example. They also know how little they've mastered and must keep working at it.
It might take a while for us to find the path, but once we do, nothing can stop us from pursuing our crafts. It took me twenty years to find writing as what was "in my bones", and then it took twenty more of practice as a journalist and tech writer before I leapt into writing creative nonfiction and poetry. I hope I have another twenty years to practice the direction I headed five years ago.
Confucius wrote: "It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."
Famous American artist, Georgia O'Keeffe wrote: “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”
And to drive home the thought for myself, especially, I remember this one from Leonardo da Vinci. He might not have said it this exact way, but it surely rings true!
"A diamond is just a lump of coal that stuck to its job."
This is great!
Thank you, Luca!
I have a poem… w Madeleines of Proust…
Do you want to share it?
The Linden at the Gate.
That tree—the Linden—does not grow in Brooklyn anymore;
they cut it down.
ცაცხვი—the Georgian name for it.
Why did you always repeat it, tsathvi, in the native tongue
whenever you walked past?
Why, silly, it reminded you of other blooming meadows:
and linden trees with bright emerald of etched leaves silver shaded on the ersatz, with delicate gold on tiny flowers,
round seeds with bunny ears of floating double wings
that the trees back at home—four or five, maybe more—
would shed when ready, with every smooth and sorry sigh of wind.
That memory of the fragrance
dripped into the air, into your lap,
while you sat on the outside bench by the neighbor’s
wrought iron gates, listening to the gossip of harvests—
apples and eggplants eaten by the bugs,
best orchards laden with berries wrapped in nets - protection from the birds.
And the bees, the butterflies, circling the linden trees,
buzzing, busy insects seeking nectar
at the intoxicating blooms.
I smell them even here, at such distance, insurmountable,
this spring afternoon.
Linden: lime-blossom tea, the madeleine of Proust and me,
here in the Broken Lines of Present.
A nostalgic and bittersweet aroma
from the past—my tree of Hearth and haunting warmth.
Lindens lined in the rows, standing next to the azure iron gates of Heaven,
guarding my youth and home once.
Oct. 4, 2025
© Tamar Shengelia. All rights reserved.
I don’t know why the formatting is totally gone, tried to adjust, can’t do anything…all stanzas broken((( sorry
I think there's a special button to press if you're posting poetry. Oh, just thought...this isn't a post as such. Hmmm...not sure then. Anyway, it doesn't really matter because your poem is wonderful!
World Snooker Championship on Eurosport. The memories.
Haha. I'm happy we share these memories.
As usual when I read your Bagatelles, I'm not sure which one I enjoyed more.
Love this! Do you know the book I Remember by Joe Brainard?
You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about education. But some good, sacred memory preserved from childhood – that is perhaps the best education. For if a man has only one good memory left in his heart, even that may keep him from evil…And if he carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe for the end of his days. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov