Monroe Lawrence from About to Be Young

Commentary on lines from About to Be Young

I told my gran an eye trick
She told me how to do
She told me since I told her that
A trick she longer knew

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I brought up to my grandmother recently a set of eye exercises that she once expressed to me she performed nightly and that I ought to perform myself, and she responded by saying that she no longer performed those eye exercises, because, like in many aspects of her life, she no longer found any value in slowing the effects of aging.

I told my grandmother recently about a set of eye exercises that I routinely performed in order to avoid eye strain while reading and writing, and she interrupted me, laughing, and suggested her own improvements to those exercises, adding that she had of course herself told me about those exercises years ago—and I was now bringing them up to her as if they were movements I had invented myself.

I mentioned to my grandmother recently the particular eye trick that she once introduced me to years ago, but when I mentioned it to her she said that she had long since forgotten the eye trick entirely.

I remind my grandmother once again about the old eye trick she has always told me about, and she responds by telling me that since I last brought it up to her—meaning, from the time when I last brought it up to her and also as a result of the time I last brought it up to her—she is no longer capable of performing the eye trick (I have ruined the placebo-function of her exercises).

I say to a person I often call ‘gran’ in her company and in the company of my family that I still deploy the eye exercises she once taught me about in 2011, and she immediately sits up straight and begins tracing her index finger through the air in front of her face in imitation of the way one of the eye exercises is performed, and it is as if she were reading an invisible text in the middle of the air above her, yet she goes on to explain that ever since I last brought up to her those old eye exercises she used to do—explaining how I did them nightly in order to keep my eyes healthy through a routine of reading and writing—her own eyes had begun slowly to fail, and it was as if my praising her for her lifelong resourcefulness in performing those exercises had elicited the effect of diminishing her ability to keep herself healthy (I had ruined the placebo-function of her exercises).

I say to a person I never call ‘gran’ either to her face or with my family that I still deploy the rather many eye exercises she once told me about in 2011, and she immediately traces her index finger through the air in front of her in imitation of the way the eye exercises are performed . . .

I relate to my grandmother a moment when I was five years old, when I told her to watch me hold my thumb up before my face and quickly close and open each eye and “wink” at my grandmother repeatedly with each eye, in order to explain to her something I have just discovered . . . yet focusing . . . not on my grandmother . . . but on the bizarre and extraordinary movements of my thumb through air . . . as I wink back and forth . . . focusing gently on the middle distance . . . somehow transitioning between seeing through my thumb and then experiencing my thumb as solid, seeing through my thumb and then experiencing my thumb as solid (seeing through my thumb and then experiencing my thumb as solid) as I seek to have my thumb leap back and forth two or so inches in front of my face through the air; and as I seek to express the idea to my grandmother, at five years old, I find we both delight in the fundamental strangeness of perceiving, and I never forgot that moment, I tell her, and as I relate this story to my grandmother she responds by saying that she simply has no memory of the moment I am talking about, and struggles even to understand what I am saying.

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Monroe was recently published in Annulet.

Monroe will also have several pages in my print magazine, coming later this year. He is a longtime supporter of Common Measure, and I am grateful that he has trusted me with his work.