Traditions are rarely so old as people imagine, and their origins are often anything but glorious. You have to be careful at every moment, in fact, lest you send some new tradition hurtling into the future like some nascent eternal truth.
I wonder if one could learn to be at home in the flux of all things, if one could embrace the fact of change as an experience. I wonder if, doing so, one could avoid the pain of loss. Perhaps it would follow, however, that one would develop a new pain of familiarity, aching deeply because some things never change.
When I was a kid I learned how the world was. I held my paper up to the light and traced out what I saw, true in every detail. I neither learn nor see as well now as I did then, and I can't keep up with all the adjustments to the lines of my tracing. Instead, I've learned to love the blurred lines. I tell myself this.
As you get older, your heart may gravitate toward those things that never change. Strange food, too fast or too fake, may push you to the farmer's market. "Corn," you will say. "We used to eat corn."
As for me, I make up my memories these days. In this world of flux, what is the difference between happening long ago and not happening at all? I remember being taught this by the elders in my tribe. I remember when we used to hunt the wild corn with primitive weapons. I remember when corn ran free, thundering across the plains, giant herds that stretched to the horizon, and beyond.
Hello, friends. What's happening?
Later. Love.
