Perhaps He Knew, as I Did Not, That the Earth Was Made Round so That We Would Not See Far Down the Road. (Karen Blixen in “Out of Africa”)

 

There is nothing we do that is for the first time. When alone, we think about discovering. We forget that we had already become who we always were.

When surrounded by people, when in cities of stone and steel, we dream of sunflower fields or of a lettuce garden. We forget that saying farewell is never for the first time.

And we see down the road because we can walk only to the edge. Sometimes that edge is in the middle of a lifetime. Sometimes it is lifetime itself.

And at that edge we sit for a while, but never for the last time. We know we have to get up and pretend that the lettuce garden is ready for spring.

… Yet we never really forget that train station. But memory gets out-of-focus as the train disappears. Like an old negative left in a shoe box because it was out-of-focus.

 

March 19, 2022

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2022