«Every painting is always two paintings;
— Siri Hustvedt, 2013
the one you see and the one you remember»
The negative
I have been in this city more times than I can remember. The streets, the buildings, the narrow alleys and the cobblestone. Windy. It’s always windy here. Walking around here is natural, second nature.
I must have been there too, in that building. Several times. At least. It’s infamous, so of course I have. It would be strange otherwise. It’s beautiful there. In theory I know that. From pictures as well. But it is like there’s only one memory left,
that has erased all the others.
The image in my head is blurry. White marble statues. Deep green leaves. Running water somewhere. Maybe from a fountain.
In some strange way nothing in that memory becomes entirely clear. Sharp. Instead there’s several images, developed on top of each other. Like when you didn’t know how to use your camera properly.
All that was left was a messed up negative.
It’s weird, the memory that stuck. I didn’t expect it to be that moment, that I kept. Maybe because what happened was unexpected. Or because of my reaction to it. Somehow that image stuck.
We didn’t do anything else that day. After that phone call. A time warp that shifted the reality.
Sometimes I see it on the street, the sticker. On a wall. In the subway. In the most unexpected places.
It always makes me think of that double exposed image.
The memory that never becomes fully sharp.