On the Calculation of Volume, Book I

by Solvej Balle

The sudden feeling of sharing something inexplicable, a sense of wonder at the existence of the other—the one person who makes everything simple—a feeling of being calmed down and thrown into turmoil at one and the same time.

That is why I began to write. Because I can hear him in the house. Because time has fallen apart. Because I found a ream of paper on the shelf. Because I’m trying to remember. Because the paper remembers. And there may be healing in sentences.

That the logic of the world and the laws of nature break down. That we are forced to acknowledge that our expectations about the constancy of the world are on shaky ground. There are no guarantees and behind all that we ordinarily regard as certain lie improbable exceptions, sudden cracks and inconceivable breaches of the usual laws. It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences.

The unthinkable is something we carry with us always. It has already happened: we are improbable, we have emerged from a cloud of unbelievable coincidences.

It is the loss that staggers me. It is the longing for what is lost and there is nothing I can do about it.