Dear Cyndy,

It's not at all derogatory when I note that I now remember
our earlier discussion of memory and your describing
the various types of memory. I repeat myself all the time.
Repetition, sameness, identity is the essence of intellectual
(geistige, spiritual) existence. I remember a dramatic exposition
by my teacher Karl Vietor, whom I have mentioned before. Vietor
explained that the process of living is like traversing
a spiral staircase. From year to year, one finds oneself in a
different vertical position; but the horizontal coordinates
define a point at which one has been before. Vietor's comment
may have been obiter dictum in a lecture; but the echo of it 
rings so personal, that I imagine remembering his imparting
this bit of wisdom to me on one of the occasions when we
encountered each other on the steps of Widener. He did not
elaborate whether one is traversing the spiral up or down.

Your expansion of memory - public, private, personal, flash, -
seems to me useful in various respects, descriptive of memory's
many facets, and demonstrative also of the term's inherent
ambiguity. In French there is the interesting contrast between
memoire and souvenir. In German the the word "Gedaechtnis" refers
to the faculty of memory, wheras "Erinnerung" points to the 
content of memory: that which is in fact remembered. The verb
"erinnern" strikes me as remarkable in that it means both "remember"
and "remind". "Etwas erinnern" means to remember something.
"Jemanden an etwas erinnern" means to remind someone of something.
Also Gedaechtnis means both memory and memorial.

Your discussion of memory reminds me of Immanuel Kant, - and please
don't think I'm being facetious and making fun of you, - who carried
reification of mental/spritual (geistige) function to an extreme
with his hypotheses of reine Vernunft, praktische Vernunft, reiner
Verstand, Transzendentale Ideen - seemingly endless reification,
in Kant's case to the point of exhaustion. Valuable enough as a
framework for ones attempts to understand, but not necessarily a
productive exercise in ones own thinking.

So far as your writing about childhood and family is concerned,
I think you have many opportunitites for expanding and deepening what
you have written, and if you choose to do more with this subject, I'm
much interested in reading what you write.

Back from Government Center and the Appeals Court, where I paid my
three hundred dollar fee. My case has been docketed and given the number
2009P1613. This time, the clerks were very gracious, approved all of
of the samples that I submitted, the Brief, two volumes of Record
Appendix as well as two volumes of Motions to Expand the Record.
By tomorrow evening I hope to have all the documents ready to "serve"
on the opposition attorneys and to file with the court. I'll report
to you on my progress.

Margaret telephoned Joanna wo invite her and Gillian for lunch,
before we pack her things and I drive her and her belongings
to the Harvard dormitory. I'll report to you on that also.
I hope that you and Ned and your visitors have a satisfactory week.

Rilke again:

Die grossen Zeiten,
da Geschehen noch sichtbar war
sind nicht fuer uns.
Wer spricht von siegen,
Ueberstehen ist alles.

(Referring to Biblical miracles:)
The times of greatness
with yet visible events
are not for us.
Speak not of victory,
but accept survival.

Jochen