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Time passes, but all it does is pour day after day into my world, it goes nowhere, it has no stops or stations, only this endless chain of days.
I can write whatever I please, I can go wherever I please, I want for nothing.
But traditions don’t need to harmonize, they simply have to be there. They have to be there as a sort of safety net, to give one something to land on. When the world falls apart. When time fractures.
I said I was sure that through careful listening you could solve any problem that might arise. If you really listened. The great questions in life. Everything. And if you couldn’t find it in people’s conversations you could try listening to birdsong. Or the sound of the wind. You will always find your way to something.
But seasons? She saw them more as psychological phenomena. Memory concentrates. Accepted stereotypes. Conglomerates of experiences and feelings, perhaps.
When I sit in my backyard I can tell that my time is a container. That is how it is. It is a day one can step into. Again and again. Not a stream which one can only dip into once. Time doesn’t fly anywhere, it stays still, it is a vessel.
If time is a container then it can be emptied, and if I am not careful I will soon start to see traces of myself all over town: things being used up, empty shelves, the tracks of a plundering monster, a beast on the prowl, the bloody trail of a predator.
In fact if you think about it, it must be one of mankind’s weirdest traits, but it is one of those peculiarities which we simply accept, this need to invest everyday objects—wedding rings, jewelry, as well as lucky coins, amulets, magic stones, relics, and sacred objects—with meaning.
My days are simple, my head is full, my nights are quiet.
A person is allowed to laugh if they find themselves at the bottom of a container with a view of the sky and know they will never learn how they ended up there.
