Forest Dark

by Nicole Krauss

To plan things, one must be able to imagine oneself into a future that is an extension of the present, and it seemed to me that I had ceased to imagine that, whether out of inability or lack of desire, I couldn’t say.

Just as the inhabitants of Tel Aviv refuse to believe in the need for central heating, so they also seem to insist on going around underdressed, in T-shirts and flip-flops, always unprepared for the rain or surprised by the cold, and at the first sign of sun they rush outside to resume their usual positions. In this way, the whole city seems to have agreed collectively to deny the existence of winter. To deny, in other words, an aspect of their reality, because it conflicts with what they believe about who they are—a people of sun, of salt air and sultriness. A people who are, in that moment of sunbathing, of forgetfulness by the sea, as related to missiles as a man is related to the flight of a bird. And yet isn’t it true of all of us? That there are things we feel to be at the heart of our nature that are not borne out by the evidence around us, and so, to protect our delicate sense of integrity, we elect, however unconsciously, to see the world other than the way it really is?