Read the blogpost of a brilliant friend/mentor today. The post was about the current Kenyan election--he follows closely because he grew up there (and he's an engaged observer, critic, hopeful of the world). His post today was so beautiful--all about the efficiency and rationality of the now, versus the more truthful times, as he calls them, of the not so distant past.
If I wanted to draw his attention to my story, I would have commented; I would have said I can relate to this! I thought about it. Because I remember more truthful, less rational times in my own history. When every moment and action felt like laying it all down. Like losses and gains were sonic booms, and moments were eggs found in tact beneath a tree. Perhaps so were deaths.
(I wonder about my friends who've been through war. Or cancer.)
I don't pine much for the early, frantic days of grieving Sophie. And I don't write about how distant I feel from that grief now, or how that makes me feel like I've lived through an earthshake that has created chasms between my psychic continents. And I ended up with all but one leg on this side, slowly drifting away from the blood and screaming and threats of suicide. It's peaceful here, right?
(But I'd be lying if I said I never longed for grief--isn't that what I'm saying?)
Like I am a reincarnate from a time before time was measured, and now I'm walking in a world of clocks, and arrivals and departures are charted to fragments of seconds. Beneath the constant ticking I hear the long, low, unsyncopated wail of my own time.
This reincarnation is tricky business. This life is easier. The days are easier. They feel digestible. But like food pellets, or caloric vitamins.
(I googled Kenya. Looked at its Wikipedia site. The news.)
And I felt ashamed of my distance, even from research. Kenya reduced to a single page. My daughter reduced to a day of remembrance. Kenya reduced to one woman's suffering. The world reduced to my laptop. They fit neatly inside each other, like strange, corpsely stacking dolls, don't they?
The post. Please read: http://gukira.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/our-rational-now/#comments
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