A Name For Our Records (More Xmas Meandering(s))
I placed a coffee cup in front of John and asked him to grab it [with his phantom limb]. Just as he said he was reaching out, I yanked the cup away.
"Ow!" he yelled. "Don't do that!"
"What's the matter?"
"Don't do that", he repeated. "I had just got my fingers around the cup handle when you pulled it. That really hurts!"
Hold on a minute. I wrench a real cup from phantom fingers and the person yells, ouch! The fingers were illusory, but the pain was real - indeed, so intense that I dared not repeat the experiment.
-V.S. Ramachandran, Phantoms in the Brain
So intense that i dared not repeat the experiment. I don't talk about my father much. Indeed, if anything, i think i'm pretty cavalier about the whole affair. I'll claim i was too young to really know him, that my memories of him are grey and indistinct: he was more a presence in my young life, despite being a constant and loving one. But it's a time for family, for recollection, for the women i love (mothers, aunts, sister, grandmothers) to gather and tell stories of dead men. All things are blameless in death, especially parents and lovers.
"A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts"
Oh, you had a limb once. A beautiful, strong, faultless appendage. It rose with you in the morning and served you well, if silently, all the live long day until sleep would steal its function. We all remember your limb, how it glistened with bath water, how it would grasp and hold, how it would touch and welcome, clutching other limbs, other bodies to itself, almost jealously. We remember its smells, its sights, its hidden strength. Yes, you had a wonderful limb. And sometimes, when the season is cold and the nights are long, when mangers are dragged from closets and we gather to speak and reminisce, there is a tingling, a scratching, a lingering unplaceable sensation. It takes stories to remind us of what has been cleaved away and we mumble apologies, leaving to claw at stumps. There are experiments too intense, stories too near. We are all bodies without.
"Ow!" he yelled. "Don't do that!"
"What's the matter?"
"Don't do that", he repeated. "I had just got my fingers around the cup handle when you pulled it. That really hurts!"
Hold on a minute. I wrench a real cup from phantom fingers and the person yells, ouch! The fingers were illusory, but the pain was real - indeed, so intense that I dared not repeat the experiment.
-V.S. Ramachandran, Phantoms in the Brain
So intense that i dared not repeat the experiment. I don't talk about my father much. Indeed, if anything, i think i'm pretty cavalier about the whole affair. I'll claim i was too young to really know him, that my memories of him are grey and indistinct: he was more a presence in my young life, despite being a constant and loving one. But it's a time for family, for recollection, for the women i love (mothers, aunts, sister, grandmothers) to gather and tell stories of dead men. All things are blameless in death, especially parents and lovers.
"A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts"
Oh, you had a limb once. A beautiful, strong, faultless appendage. It rose with you in the morning and served you well, if silently, all the live long day until sleep would steal its function. We all remember your limb, how it glistened with bath water, how it would grasp and hold, how it would touch and welcome, clutching other limbs, other bodies to itself, almost jealously. We remember its smells, its sights, its hidden strength. Yes, you had a wonderful limb. And sometimes, when the season is cold and the nights are long, when mangers are dragged from closets and we gather to speak and reminisce, there is a tingling, a scratching, a lingering unplaceable sensation. It takes stories to remind us of what has been cleaved away and we mumble apologies, leaving to claw at stumps. There are experiments too intense, stories too near. We are all bodies without.