Feeling a bit abstracted and commentative this morning. Politics is depressing and energizing at the same time, did you ever notice that? The devouring of the corpus publius…
So photographs.
Wandering the streets, trying to fit what was with what is, seeing the skeleton of what you used to know beneath the layered detritus of the now. I see the same things but they no longer register the same way. Is this, perhaps, nostalgia, intense homesickness, nosta—homecoming—algia—pain?
The past is there, but I am not. I can only note what it once was, testify where it had been, validate the now because the scaffolding of then holds it up.
Or maybe I’m just tired.
We are a pattern-anticipating sensate creature. Where the patterns mean nothing we can oblige the emptiness by bringing our own meanings and applying them. It’s as pleasant a pasttime as any other, until we begin believing our own significations to the detriment of the previous occupants. Even knowing the traps, we can’t help it. We want to, and sometimes we do, but more often we just think we do. Know, that is. The inability to accept the process leads to tight spaces with no room to maneuver. Squeezes our expectations all out of true.
The patterns persist even when the desires change. If we appreciated them for what they are and resisted the urge to impose our own hungers on them, we might find what we need and feel better about it in the process.
But what do I know? I’m just a science fiction writer who takes pictures.
Hope you have a fine day.
