Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal—the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?

But it was smell that carried memory.

I loved her like elephants like remembering stuff. Those bastards just won’t let me forget and move on.

To forget would mean the things we never knewhad never waited to be known, never waitedto be forgotten, had never been; waitingbeneath the long dead starsin time. . .

One day this war will end. And when it does, Tule Lake will be just a memory.

Didn’t I say I’d always be your same stars? If you get to missing me, just look up.

If you remember yourself, you will remember me. I am always a part of you. I am your mother.

I remember you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know.

I’ve heard it said before that those who don’t learn from the past are bound to repeat it, and I just don’t know what I think about that. I figure I don’t have too much...