A Palace of Memories

Illness, Sokurov, and the dream of recovery

Reading during tough times builds a bridge between spiritual and intellectual nourishment—a way to steady oneself through daily challenges. There isn’t much I can do physically due to my GERD issues, but overall, I’m feeling a little better.

I had a dream (or vision) of the people of the French Commune, dead, their bodies stacked on top of each other. It formed a hill or a Christmas tree with a point at the top. One soldier—or perhaps an actor posing as one—suddenly stirred. It was like a puzzle, where each person had to remove themselves from the pile from top to bottom. In this dream, I was happy because they weren’t really dead, just pretending. And as each person struggled to free themselves, I felt physically better.

When I fully woke up, I wasn’t coughing. I took that as a sign that I’m improving. I still cough, of course, but not as severely as before.

I’ve always been lazy—the kind of person who, when work calls, prefers to study the cracks in the ceiling. But my laziness now isn’t about avoiding work; it’s about the difficulty of keeping my eyes open. With my condition, I can’t lie down immediately after eating. I have to sit or stand for at least thirty minutes to three hours. As my head grows hazy, I try to find ways to guide myself toward the bed or couch.

This feels psychological; in fact, I suspect that ninety-five percent of my illness is mental. I even wonder if I’m genuinely sick at all. Maybe this is my way of disconnecting from the twenty-first century. I’ve grown weary of this century—the cruelty and the power behind that cruelty, which are somehow respected and even admired in certain circles. Why does someone wake up in the morning and decide to make another person suffer that day? It’s gone on for years, and this year feels especially severe. Maybe my dream of the Commune coming back to life isn’t just about my own illness, but about the world’s mental and physical health as well.

Over the past three days, I’ve been watching films by Aleksandr Sokurov. The first was Francofonia, which explores the relationship between the Nazis and the Louvre. The next was The Sun, about Emperor Hirohito’s final days in power as World War II ended. Both are haunting—treating history as a living memory. The masterpiece, of course, is Russian Ark, where a ghost wanders through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, accompanied by a European, the Marquis de Custine—a real nineteenth-century traveler. As they move through the palace, they also move through time. The location isn’t haunted; it’s a palace of memories.

Since I’ve stayed home during my illness, the house too has become a room of memories. I rarely wander away from our living room. It’s where I now work, and where I eat my strange half-plate meals. As I get stronger, I’m starting to see the end of the tunnel, and I will have a life again.

On the other hand, how does one define “life”?