"We are all haunted by the ghost of the present as we recollect the long distant past, so clear now in its shifts and phases. The present lives alongside our sweep of memory, all unknowing about its own nature, existing minute by minute, wondering if this means something, or that signifies something else, but unable to grasp the nature of its own time. All the while the present has its own past to look back to, but there is no guidance in it, submerged as it is by the present now. Only when it's all over, when it's too late, can you know for sure that then marks the change that altered the course of a life. The present is blind. Just as well, I suppose. What was there to do about anything at the time? But what is there to do about anything when all is said and done?"
— Jenny Diski, Only Human: A Divine Comedy
What I missed, what I didn't do, opportunities ignored, these subject occupy me often enough. I know there is nothing to do about them now.
That was enough thought fodder for the day. That Jenny Diski book is very good but unsettling also. Interrupting?
Spring cleaning. Is that enough of an interruption. Why clean the desk or the table, when you can start on the soot filled window-sills and the books that need dusting? Underneath the bed is a dust bunny breeding ground. I cleaned until I felt so filthy from dust and cat hair (love them but they are work), that I ran to the bath and scrubbed with dead sea salt to get the past out of my pores.
I wish I better understood either my method or my madness. I am the princess of iteration. Start over and over and over again, each time getting a bit further, but never really getting to completion. I think there is something there.
And while I am cleaning, I am questioning my amount of stuff. Why do I need it? Why do I want it? Why can't I let it go?
On the other hand, I am napping more efficiently. Setting the alarm and just being quiet for twenty minutes is revitalizing. And although I didn't deal with the brussels sprouts or the fresh asparagus, I did get two pizzas made and the kitchen cleaned up again.
We try.
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Keep that screen up in your kitchen window and that squirrel will deal with the sprouts and asparagus you didn't. Zzzzzzzzzzz!
ReplyDeleteI hear ya on the "stuff" - in the process of looking at things around me and saying, "Would I miss this terribly if it were gone?" To a lot of things, the answer is a refreshing, "No." Now to muster up the will to let go. That is next.
ReplyDeleteAnd it will be a "then" moment indeed!