The relationship with our ‘personal’ past is fraught with complexity.
Vast and shifting responses to one’s past are a natural given- and the complexity remains throughout life. Comprehension deepens, while one becomes genuinely conversant with integrating such manifold depths.
Leaving a city to relocate creates a permanent “gains and losses” palpable reference point which one can “sit up against” later in life . . . as if putting one’s back to a tree in any season of body and spirit.
It is an emotiometabolic experience, sitting against that tree- for one’s whole world is sensed before one, both the past and the present.
The past is visible, yet invisible. The past is the very base of that tree which presently supports one’s back. At times one wants to beat it with a stick. At times one would want to fully embrace it without restraint- but just as suddenly one finds that one no longer can, which brings on a swift, startling grief.
All this said, the experience of the flux of ‘present past’ qua living is an utterly absorbing endeavor. One learns to relax, to accept. For there would seem to exist some ineffable stream- an eternal, underground current of life supporting energy, a river of foundational consciousness flowing beyond cities, seasons, identities. Its causal ripples seek us out, bleaching the bones of former selves in the backwash.
One cannot step down: the footing turns in the silts. Learn to float. Seek of the sun, shining just now, radiant above all tousling of water.
All blogposts Copyright © 2023 by Michael D. Main. All rights are reserved. Michael D. Main holds the copyrights to all works authored by Michael D. Main, including and not limited to all his poems, notes, blogposts, and photography posted on this author website. No part of these publications may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, republishing, recording or otherwise express written permission from the copyright holder. Be aware that although these works may be freely accessible on the World Wide Web and may not include any statement about copyright, the U.S. Copyright Act nevertheless provides that such works are protected by copyright laws.
Comments