"Some things, once you've loved them, become yours forever. And if you try to let them go, they only circle back, and return to you. They become part of who you are. Or they destroy you."
- Allen Ginsberg, Kill Your Darlings (2014)
When I was younger, influenced by the naivety of inexperience, I used to believe time was therapeutic. That everything is made easier and palatable with patience. And pain fades away with memory, like brush strokes on vellum.
But time is neutral, and it can easily fade a memory as much as magnify it. Resolution, like the depth of an experience or a memory, is independent of how long you dwell on it. No amount of wallowing will make the pill go down easier.
In that regard, we're slaves to history. It is both what feeds our hope for sunnier times, and the nimbus that clouds our present; propelling us in the struggle and abating our potential growth.
Experience is a good mentor, but insight is the better one. We often fail to recognize that what we go through in life is rendered worthless if it doesn't educate us.
Noone comes out of grief unscathed; the scars are meant not just to deform but also to inform us. Time does not pause from its glacial procession. It is only us who choose to be still, to stagnate, in these valuable and long-gone moments.
When a clock stops ticking, its gears do not cease to exist. They're still there, needing to be rewound.
This, here, is that.
This entry is for the Round Table Challenge, and was done entirely (including the photo-graphics) on the phone with Google Keep, PhotoGrid, and Blogger for Android.
9 redmarks:
when i was younger, i felt the opposite about time. i had to constantly be reminded that something existed beyond the present. i will have to think more about grief: i hadn't looked at it as something that deforms but releases.
I want to print these words on a sticker or something for too many parts resonated with scars both old and new. I hope all is well, Red. I think I might have seen you on Kalayaan this morning but you (he?) were walking too quickly for me to place you. :)
@LoF Youth affords idealism, because generally we are reared to be optimistic about life - do better, be better, become successful, be more than what you are at present. There is nothing wrong about this. In fact, optimism is something one should strive for throughout life. But the reality is loss, grief, and disappointment adds up over the years and could easily turn the most positive of us into whimpering, stuck-up fools. Grief becomes liberating only when you come to terms with it. Otherwise, it becomes excess baggage.
@Nyl Life is always dichotomous; we have to take the good with the bad. Saying all is well would be untruthful, as much as saying that all's a mess. It probably was me. I walk to work daily, and Kalayaan Ave. is on my route. :)
ahhh time...
j.k. rowling's timeturner would have been a very beautiful gift.
@Moi It would've been. But then, we wouldn't learn the lessons experience is meant to teach us.
reads like the story of nights when I keep the company of the deathstick as I muse on my choices that got me wherever I stood(or sat) at the time. comfort can be many things: a gift, distance, or surrender
@Spiral Prince Comfort can come from anything. So does grief. Be well.
The opening quote reminded me of Color of Time (2015).
"Some memories define us, but others consume us."
...and I love your prose. 😊
@Lucas Thanks. Often I find myself pining to write, unlike before when time had been an ally. You write beautifully.
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