The conjunction came from a song lyric and a book fragment, within not very
minutes of each other.
The song lyric came first; it was playing as I worked on the text of an
article about statistical testing:
She was physically forgotten,
Then she slipped into my pocket
With my car keys.
She said “You've taken me for granted
Because I pleased you...”1
I was hungry so, when the track finished, paused the player and put aside the
article for a while to get a bite to eat. Filling the gastric gap with a
sandwich from my right hand, I picked up the book with my left to give my mind a
brief change of scene as well. The book was an old favourite (in fact, I find
that I already referenced this same line from it,
earlier this year ... I'm getting repetitive) which is, to embroider the conjunction (or to suggest that am stuck in a particular past), very close to being coeval with the song:
There’s a photograph of an olive tree among the stones on my desk; when Luise left she wrote on the back of it: “I trusted you with the idea of me and you lost it”.2
It's so easy to take someone for granted and lose the idea of them ... not
just a significant other, but oneself and (the thought that occurred to me in
this case) those friends more removed as well.
- Paul Simon, "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes" on Graceland, 1986
- Russell Hoban, The Medusa Frequency Ch.3. 1987, London: Cape. ISBN 0224024647
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