#memory-and-identity

#memory-and-identity

When we talked, it wasn't just about jobs or kids or where life had taken us. It was also about remembering who we used to be - those fearless, awkward, hopeful kids who thought the world was ahead of them. There's something grounding about being seen like that again, by the people who knew your firsts and loved you just as you were.

I still have that copy; I've carried it through half a dozen states and a dozen moves and uncountable phases of my life. Twenty-seven years later, its pages are vanilla-sweet, from the decaying lignin; the imprint was long ago absorbed into another. But "I Who Have Never Known Men," which was first published thirty years ago, in French, has found new life.