to continue: i thought there was something in nooteboom about memory of desire, and indeed i found it, in the following story, which book i was only thinking about this morning, thinking about the line "she is the joy of my old age" and thinking about old age. on remembering passion, nooteboom says:

memory of lust is the most elusive of all. once lust becomes an idea it becomes its own contradiction: absent, gone. and hence unthinkable.

and that is exactly right.

even so, not very happy with ovid right now, who says,

sed mora tuta breuis: lentescunt tempore curae
uanescitque absens et nouus intrat amor:

which, in the j lewis may translation, reads: to be on the safe side; don't stay away too long; time softens the pangs of longing. the absent lover is soon forgotten, and another takes his place. in short, out of sight, out of mind. one hopes that isn't true, but sometimes, quite hurtfully, it seems like that.

the other thing i was thinking about last night, about resisting remembrance and choosing forgetting, was from the english patient. on a postcard to d'almasy she writes:

half my days i cannot bear not to touch you.
the rest of the time i feel it doesn't matter if i ever see you again.
it isn't the morality, it is how much you can bear."

and christina rossetti on why else forget:

yet if you should forget me for a while
and afterwards remember, do not grieve:
for if the darkness and corruption leave
a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad.

and listening to dolly parton sing i will always love you.

i choose remembering.