January 17, 2015
Sometimes, when I put my hair up a certain way, and I catch
a wayward reflection of myself on some shiny surface, I see my mother looking
back. For a microsecond she is there.
But I have ceased taking a second look when this happens.
She is forever lost to me. And irrecoverable, she stands on the other side of
the shiny surface, perhaps looking back, perhaps not.
March 19, 2015
On his way back to the village, Jarvis meets Kumalo, the
father of his son’s murderer. Despite himself, Jarvis asks the other father if
he remembers his son, and Kumalo says, yes.
Even if he doesn’t.
How does it happen that there are some things in this world
we wish we did not understand?
Like this begging for a shared memory? Or the blinding
clarity of how natural it is to need it so much. Or the embarrassment of having
to stutter when you try to explain where you are going, because you were going someplace where you could wait for
the longing to abate. Or the immense gratitude for the kind of empathy that
does not require a syllable of explaining.
This comprehension, this insight into what the human soul is
capable of enduring—where does one give it back?
July 6, 2015
And I want to stay there, in that pause, where you are.
We will forever be a heartbeat apart, forever a soul away--my breath is our distance; our memory, my curse.
