Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Is there nothing that holds?


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We change. This is a truism so blatant we could laugh at it, if we really believed it. 
We know things change, both things as circumstances and things as objects. 
The meadow across from the house where I grew up,
 which seemed like it had been there forever,
 has been filled with houses for forty years. 
To the people living in those homes the meadow, 
the games and egg hunts were never there. 
Only their own memories are there.
 In our heart of hearts, however, most of us harbor a deep belief, 
so deep we accept it without thinking,
 that some part of us, an essential us, remains the same, 
regardless of events or even memories. 
.
It's an illusory belief.
 Is there nothing that holds? No. Nothing. 
Nobody. Nada. Nadie.
 Even if we hold what seem to be the same feelings and thoughts years later?
 Isn't there something essential in them that holds?
 No.
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~  Terrance Keenan, from 'St Nadie In Winter'
artwork by the author
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