Traces
Today I want to talk about traces. Traces that we leave. Traces that we carry. When you take a moment and think about it, we are but a collection of the multitude of traces that have accumulated over time. Of people, places, moments. I am not sure if they are good or bad. They way they inconspicuously infuse into our mindstream (I couldn't think of a better word similar to bloodstream that'd describe the intensity and depth of that infusion; an infusion so deep and detailed that you don't even notice at times). Like, Anne Michaels said, "the past exists as a present moment." Almost like a substitute actor eagerly waiting by the side of the stage, waiting to take the place of the main actor. And suddenly, as the mundane procession of life is underway, suddenly a heap of hoarded tissues from subway reminds you of someone--someone who used to be close to the heart, someone whose name used to fill the heart with tenderness, someone who redefined love and pain -- who used to hoard tissues the same way. And suddenly it hits you that knowingly or unknowingly, at some point in your life, your brain automated the action that you tenderly registered in some chamber of your brain a while ago. I looked at that heap, a bittersweet taste filling my mouth, unable to process the moment, the memory and the reality. How can one, anyway process a moment that is neither the present nor the past, and doesn't have a future either. It's like acceptance of death. Of absolute existential negation by acknowledging its liminal existence.