Cemetery
A teenager whips around the corner in a big white truck and speeds down the road. I remember that feeling of oblivion, no concept of how common it is for unexpected things like pets and children or other lifeforms to run into the middle of the road.
Across the street there is a cemetery. Most of the graves within sight are from the late 1800s. Nobody is planting geraniums around these plots or coming to visit. I can tell by the size of the monument who had money at the time of their death. I don’t want a monument when I die. Spread my ashes in the ocean. I will come and go with the tides.
Knowing the inevitability of death, an end in the body, it’s perplexing that we spend so much of our time trying to make right with the past. My past is a collection of ghosts, some of them joyful and just as many tortured. It’s a very entertaining movie when life gets boring, the mind always working up a new cut of the story for my review. It is a search for the truth.
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Even single photographs are distorted by memory. I think I can remember what was going on behind those eyes or what was beneath that smile, but is that the whole story? My “knowing” the past seems like an encounter with a collection of partial truths, and they are a tricky bunch. It’s good to be with people who remember other parts of the truth. My memory tends to fragment, and to bury details.
How many moments per day am I truly present, not engaging with dreams and ghosts? What would it take to add one more minute per day of presence?
The sun is burning my feet. The clouds are gathering off in the distance, slowly moving north.
July 3, 2017
