Remembrance and distance

"You have issues, don't you Lisa?" I don't think that anyone has really ever come right out and said that to me. So, thanks Dr. Sexson for at least giving me a good laugh. My "issues" brought me to the act of remembrance because I think that is really all they are. Remembrance has become my issue. In discussing remembrance in "A Winter's Tale", Dr. Sexson points out that Shakespeare distances us from the recognitions so that we do not see them. I have been pondering why Shakespeare would distance us from this remembrance when usually it is directly in front of us. I would like to think that Shakespeare is doing this to not avoid the remembrance but show us that though it may go unseen or unsaid, it is still unavoidable. No matter how much we attempt to avoid remembrances, we really can't.

Another thing that caught my attention during class was this mention of art and "piedness". While this is an extremely distant connection, it sparked some interest in me- "pied" in french, means foot. Then I started thinking about art, feet, french- nada. The connection was brief. As I wandered lost in thought later that night though, I began thinking about art and feet...the DANCE. So many of Shakespeare's plays contain the act of dancing (well, the ones that I have read) and this circled me around to T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets:

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where."

The dance is remembrance itself. That is what my mind was connecting. Dance. Remembrance. Distance. Time past and time present.