it wants every fiber
told and retold.
It gives and gives
but for a price, making you
risk drudgery, lapse
into document, treacheries
of glaring noon and a slow march.
Leaf never before
seen or envisioned, flying spider
of rose- red autumn, playing
a lone current of undecided wind,
lift me with you, take me
off this ground of memory that clings
to my feet like thick clay,
exacting gratitude for gifts and gifts.
Take me flying before
I have time to rememebr you,
intent instead on being
in the midst fo that flight,
of those unforseeable words.
Denise Levertov.
im not trying to write an expository essay, but rather grapple with this concept that has shadowed in a sense much of my bring- because, as in the film 2046 we are all trapped in the past in a way. the past, because it has happened, is a concrete reference point from which we derive our values- which we in turn impose upon the present to determine its significance. in so doing, however, we are trapped: we are endlessly trawling the future for traces of the past; understanding the particularities of the former in the generalities gleaned from the latter. can any moment be seized in purity, free from this judgmental prerspective? all too often we impose the standards of past experience onto novel situations, whether of personal or practical significance, and end up having made grave miscalculations. For these events must be seen on their own terms, the way last contury's perspectives cannot be used to evaluate a modern context. i also wish i had a larger vocabulary.
i am obsessed with the past, sometimes to the point that i transpose it onto the present, and then lament again this waste of time when the present has changed to past. i cannot pinpoint exactly why it is such a compelling thing to dwell upon-perhaps it is because this is the only realm in which we have a degree of power: the events themselves cannot be changed, but i can turn them over in my head on order to elucidate some truth, whether an approximation or not, about my particular human state. it is rather a helpless kind fo rationalization [or attempt at rationalization] because it essentially changes nothing. i suppose its power lies in how the objectification [as in making objective, not seeing as an object] and perspective can make even bad experiences seem more palatable- such that in retrospect the present as it were should not seem to have had such pervasive and inordinate arbitrary power over the progress in our lives and the shifts in our emotions. in short, it makes a feeble attempt at resdering the present past understandable- an unsatisfactory [at all points, if you ahve enough of a sense of perspective/ sense of absurdity, whichever you may]rebellion by the human ego against the external forces which too often prevail in our frail human struggle.
as yet incomplete
on another note: if i ever get a rich husband i am buying dresses from victoria's secret. damn it. i belatedly want to be a teen [not many years of that left] queen fashionista! wish i had more money, then i could have a library and a walk- in wadrobe, and most of all study overseas. sigh. pipe dreams.
mellie contemplated 5:01 PM
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