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Ninnery, ninnery… the sound which old sewing machines make.
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By birth I am one of you, by death I’ll be one of them. Them, you know, the ones who are sometimes remembered by you after they are gone. A bygone… a memory… perhaps part of a story which you tell to others who did not know me, us, them, or maybe they did know me, us, them, and they too have a remembrance day celebrating (or not but in a way which is celebrated too, notorious rather than famous, famous because it is notorious, or something like that) their knowing of me, of us, of them.. and of the them who are still a you knowing me in a way which made them remember such a thing, a being, a memory which wasn’t always a memory, just as the being is no longer being but sort of is because it lives on in other being as they continue to be.
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound people make when they tell us a story of a memory of which we were not a part and so…
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If your story is one that is memorable, and others actually listen and hear it over their own stories and memories, their own ninnery, ninnery, it could become a second-hand story which they pass onto others, maybe citing you as the source, maybe replacing you with themselves. It happens, being replaced, having your role usurped, especially when a story is particularly good and worth telling.
Who wants to hear – this story was told to me by a friend of a friend of a frenemy of an enemy who was a friend of a fiend… I heard this thing on a blog I follow, written by a blogger who… there was a story here somewhere but I lost it trying to explain from whence it came.
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound of details…
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My father had one of those, a story which belonged to someone else which became his and lost its ownership (plagiarism in one of its forms), or so my mother told me… I can’t recall hearing him tell it (the accused remained an accused with or without proof), but I recall her telling me that he told it… repeatedly – he told it repeatedly she said when she repeatedly told me that he told it repeatedly, but I only recall her word for it being the proof of it actually happening… however my memory may be faulty (she would definitely consider that a fact not needing any proof other than her word which was and is law to her, particularly where my stories and memories of her are concerned).
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound my mother makes when she opens her mouth… and when I remember her and all her memories turned into stories of others and of her.
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According to her, he’d stolen it from a book and made it his. Someone else’s anecdote became an anecdote of his, his life, lived but not lived. Or so went the anecdote told by someone else to me, told by her, repeating this story to make a point, to burn her point into my brain as much as it burned inside hers.
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound people who repeat themselves make.
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Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England’s overthrow.
But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake!
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
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In a few days it will be Bonfire Night, a night and day (but mostly night) known as other things… my neighbours celebrated it last night with fireworks blending in the sky captured by an ardent watcher (who wasn’t me because…), because… the actual day falls on a weekday and…
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound explanations, excuses, etc, make.
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound fireworks make before they go Boom!
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound flames make when they burn…
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…within, without…
Do we care why… as long as they warm our frigid fingers on a cold night and we can celebrate something, not necessarily recalling, remembering, what that something or someone is, was, will be once it is a bygone which is just an antique memory passed along… just… because…
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Ninnery, ninnery, the sound which life going on as it goes on makes… going on and remembering what went on but not really recalling it as it was when it happened but how it is in the now, in the now in which it is remembered, which will soon be the then.
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Ninnery, ninnery, remember, remember… until you forget.
An Upturned Soul 