I have got used to changing places, countries, and places within countries. I moved a lot. Every time I moved I had to leave things behind. Every time you move you have to redefine what is important. When I was leaving London for good, I counted how many places I’ve changed for nearly 5 years living there. I counted 14; most probably I’ve forgot some of them. 14 times I had to pack and unpack things in a new place. Moving within one place is one thing. You can carry or move most of your staff with you. Moving things by hand, by underground and on the bus, moving things in a friend’s car, moving things in a hired van, moving things in a track for moving horses; finally moving things in supermarket trolleys with friends also can make a nice memory.
There were 3 of us, and we were broke. So we pushed our trolleys all the way down from Hackney to Angel, sharing a bottle of Teacher’s to warm up in a pissing November rain. We were artists; most of the staff we moved (and had) were paintings. Generally, if you want to paint, everything will do. Walls, doors, pieces of wood, carton boxes… Most of this you leave behind when you move.
Finally leaving London for good I had to pack everything what is important. I thought it’s funny to define importance of things by their weight: 20 kilos of necessary things and memories in total. … I had to damp or give away everything exceeding those 20 kilos, including many paintings once again. The dearest ones I stripped off from frames and rolled though; never to be stretched again as a matter of fact: because I never settled down. I remember places by things left behind. I’m not attached to things; on the contrary. I just try don’t keep anything what I don’t need. My wife told me as while visiting her friend in Sardinia, she was shown a wardrobe full of T shirts and clothes her friend used to wear since high school: that was her way to keep track of her life. So I keep my track by abandon things.
Sometimes we don’t have chance to pack things; rather we left with what we have. A few days ago I left my home in the morning in rush with a feeling I’m not coming back. Details are irrelevant, what is important is what all I had was my handbag with which I headed to work. Continue reading ‘Things we belong to’
Other posts by boris kislitsin
Today I received a letter from my friend. He wrote: I’d love to write something for MemoryCemetery, but memories are boring. Let me disagree with that. Memories are boring, for sure, on the condition they are of a boring and unimaginative life. A few years ago I wrote a short novel, called ”A girl from Taliban, Coca Cola and the last days of my creation”. As you could probably see from my other posts, I’m interested in black holes. So this story (or at least parts of it) set in a black hole. This world also should like a black hole from the other side, right? Though the novel’s plot was generally made up, it was partially based on my memories and experiencies of living in London. My life is not so eventful these days, as it was back then. I broke my toe few days ago though, in the place there it was broke before. I remembered writing about this experience in the story, and it happened again just a day after I wrote about memory loops and loops of memory. No wonder it looked like a loop for me, so I took out my old dusty harddrive and refreshed in my memory what actually happened 4 years ago. Here’s this accident account, and I swear it’s all true. The story goes like this:
…Few years back I was about to paint a portrait of D. Beckham, as he is a national hero, cultural phenomena and looks like a nice guy, even if he spends a lot on the staff I probably wouldn’t. It is not my business what he makes of his life. I do not care what he does with money either: he can as well burn them. I wouldn’t mind. My wife once met another herself in a dream. So I wonder if D.Beckham has met any of himself. I see at least ten people a day wearing a T-shirt with his name whenever I go out. They call it “replica” shirt. For one Beckham there should be at least ten millions “replicas” in the world. Imagine all of them gather together at a football pitch the same time… Which one is original?
I painted maybe five or six replica Beckhams with pink or acid green bodies and different haircuts. I still can draw him with closed eyes. Beckham usually looked like this:
Illustration 1. Usual replica Beckham.
But, this time I wanted to paint the “original” Beckham.
Continue reading ‘Me and David Beckham’
Other posts by boris kislitsin
I’ve just read a post by Dalarius about has first memory. Actually it’s a great idea to learn first memories of many people…Want to see more on this site. So here is my addition to this little collection:
I don’t know which one comes first.
Either it’s a memory of a passage through an arch under a building: I remember watching up and seeing yellow paint, rotten by time and falling apart, so another, faint layer of a mustardish color paint seen under. I have a feeling I also remember the smell, a smell which I would identify now as a smell of see. I’m not walking, rather I’m carried away in hands or in pram, as the movement is smooth, and after the passage I catch a glimpse of a dark blue sky, full on without anything else in view.
Another one can be pinpointed easily, as it’s my 3 years old birthday party; as a kid I used to spend every summer in my grandmother’s house in Ukraine. So this memory is set in her garden just outside the house, and we (or most of our big family: aunts, uncle, cousins etc.) sit behind birthday table in the shadows of blackcherry and apple trees. My grandma made my favorite apple pie, and from the rest of flour she made a little bird and baked it in oven. She gives it to me. I don’t want it. I’m busy with my present: a set of Aurora’s battleship revolutionary sailors: they run on the table towards the immanent death from indians, my cousin teamed them up with a set of cowboys (what an unexpected alliance!) and hid them behind the barricade of fruits, cutlery and dominoes. To assault his defense, my sailors have to cross the open space of the table to another side. The half of my unit is already lost. I move my teacup over the table, so my sailors can advance behind it, hidden from enemy’s fire and tomahawks. We are close. I still have 4 or 5 left, and one sailor is pulling a machine gun Maxim; surely Indians armed mainly with lances and knives and cowboys with lassos are not a match for it. Suddenly a bird sitting on the tree above defecates, it’s shit falls precisely in the cup followed by splash.
- It’s for luck! That’s a very good sign!- exclaims my grandmother, my cup being immediately removed.
A bird shit in my tea is good? I don’t think so; everybody around laughs, I start to cry. I’m upset about my tea, and about my lost campaign, and about that silly bird cookie I have to eat.
abraxus
Other posts by abraxus
I remember this one time, when I was somewhere between the ages of three and five. I was standing outside a small convenience store in Vancouver with my mother, she had just bought me a scratch and win ticket for reasons now unknown. Anyhow I was standing on the sidewalk scratching vigorously at the thick piece of paper with a borrowed penny, more thrilled at the layer of paint I was removing from the ticket than by the possibility of winning money. After this brief frenzy of penny scratching, I made sure that the entire surface was cleaned of the removable substance. With my task complete I was gazing at the small area I had cleared, the vague notion of checking if I had won anything in mind, unable to tell though I held It up in the air at my mother and hollered at her. “MOM did I win anything?” She looked at the ticket for only two or three seconds before declaring that I had won two dollars. After this point my memory of the whole scene grows fuzzy and I cannot recall if she took the ticket and gave me two dollars. Which would mean that I had possibly not won anything and she was just humoring my small child self. Or the other option is that we went back into the store we were standing in front of and she exchanged the ticket for two loonies (as twoonies did not yet exist) where upon I probably bought candy with them. As I can’t remember which of those endings is the correct one, maybe theres even some third unknown possibility that I have no idea of.
Anyway thats the story of my first memory 
Dalarius
Other posts by Dalarius
