Blue Nights and Memories
Just finished reading Blue Nights by Joan Didion . Clawed through it, beginning to end, in like three days. Which is record time considering that every word in the book is meticulously fussed over and concerns dying, death, or scenes involving a child you are fully aware is on a fast track to dying and death. It was harrowing. It was riveting. I like the idea of the Blue Night. I'm watching one unfurl through the window. It's that distended hour between daylight and night that lingers -- but only in summer during those few weeks before and after the solstice, when the sun rises highest in the sky. Now, in other words. I like the idea of the Blue Nights as a reprieve, where time hangs in the balance and memories fold themselves into the present. Here's what Joan Dideon had to say: "If only I could keep people fully present, keep them with me, by preserving their mementos, their 'things,' their totems. The detritus of this mispl