And the Roman- calendar year slowly slides to a close. I have lots to say, yet nothing—just glimpses into a time that feels as though it has galloped through, like the waters of a river that keep flowing. Always on their way to somewhere, and me, running along its shores and watching, not quite brave enough to jump in.
44–45. What a remembrance of a time it will be—it is a mark, like a notch in the wood, just before you begin to carve it out. An idea, yet never really certain how it will turn out. What will this carving hold, but a place of personal intimacy with the object of focus?
And the critic will always be ready, ready to stand face to face with all that you have done, for that is what keeps the balance of remaining humble, of not allowing the monsters to devour the self, so that you perpetually become a hunger for more, without being satiated by the river of time.
The tree bark can teach me about understanding time, as it shifts, splits, layers, and moulds itself around the trunk, creating space in crevices and holes for rivulets of water that feed tiny ecosystems.
The tree is a true testament to understanding time, to being humble, and to having a responsibility to self and other.
As a human, I could say that I understand time—that by witnessing a seed emerge into a fruiting body, shrink, and then return quietly, without any fanfare, to its resting place, I have grasped the passing of time—when all I have done is wait. Wait for an outcome, a solution, or an end.
That is not an understanding of time. That is just another way I am pretending to be helpless, as if I were a lonely grain of sand or a single raindrop under the spell of the wind, being dragged along without a say.
But that is a destructive fallacy I have been asked to believe. A drop is never alone.
The self, is part of the river, of the dunes, of the many layers of bark—I am part of a whole, of those who have come before me, surround me, and will continue to come after.
My duty is to understand time, her impact, and her gifts. Perhaps it is not to master her, nor to outrun her, but to let her move with me—and to trust that even the bark, splitting and layering, knows how to hold what it cannot keep.