| Suitcases. |
[12 Mar 2010|10:23pm] |
They tell me that the past is clean. Beautiful, precious - untainted and unhurt. But does that make it innocent, pure - a virgin from all the sins we've ever known?
I stand before two empty suitcases.
Who are they to tell me that my past is disinfected from all ails when that which hurts me, haunts me still? In my heart there festers and curdles spoiled moments in time that won't go away. They may give over time, like the colours on the suitcases, like the handle that won't properly go up and down anymore, like the back left wheel that squeaks whenever I turn it.
But the past isn't a suitcase. It can contain my world, but only a part of it. My body, unlike anything else I've come across is the only treasure chest which may encpasulate everything in the world that has to do with me. In my mind runs a thousand thoughts and nerves that quietly jot down everything. I am my own personal archives, to which I have become it's primary visitor. I am the archivist, donor, researcher, and the wandering curious person who happens upon something that for an instant appears extraordinary.
Unlike a suitcase when it wears thin, I cannot simply just throw it away and purchase a new one.
Today I have two suitcases in which I must pack things I need, and things that will help me. I am to go far, far away - what do I bring? What do I want to keep? What must I regretfully let go of? What is it I that choose to silence forever?
It's an interesting job, packing that is. Because the job of packing involves unpacking, transferring, preparing. You take the world you've got now, in whatever stability it is, and you take things. You take a toothbrush because you want to make sure that people will like your smile wherever you go, and that you don't have to take a sick day to go to the dentist and pay an unnecessary bill for having a sweet tooth. You pack a toothbrush, because you've grown attached to it these past few months. Not packing it would mean you would have to buy a new one. A new one where you have to get used to its contours all over again, break it in, and make sure all the toothpaste is washed off the bristles. And you have to make sure, that when packing your toothbrush you have room for it. Think about it, instead of your toothbush, what else could you fit into that tiny gap into your suitcase? Is there something else that belongs there instead? Is the toothbrush something you really want to take with you? Is this who you are?
My life did not contain the glamour and elegance that a film did - where every still and shot could be put onto a postcard. Of this, I am certain. Of this, I can shake my unclenched fist at the world. Because it did happen, I cannot deny that. I do not know where people get this silly idea that we remember the world the way we want to. This is not the case with every detail and aspect of the mind. There are some things I simply cannot twist in my head so that it appears to me, justified. Life happens. More importantly, life goes on, especially including every conflict, turmoil, and trouble the past inflicts upon us.
I may cling to the parts I enjoyed the most, yes, that is true. I may take with me certain pictures and trinkets that remind me that it wasn't all bad. That through the gloomiest and murkiest of waters, light would still trickle and reflect itself upon our world. But I would like to argue, to these two suitcases, to the strange new land I am to embark on, to you, that what I bring does contain both sadness, and joy. Sadness in that the memories attached to these things cannot be relived, that they once were true and can now only be remembered, recalled upon. But there is joy in that - however I may pack this suitcase, when I return some things will have left, and some new things will be replaced in their stead. That sadness shifts and moves but never leaves, and like our memories has the ability to fade but never disappear.
I am happy that "how" it is I am to pack this suitcase is not a question I ask myself. I even have a fair idea as to what I want to take with me. What torments me, is that what I want to bring, what I am prepared to take with me, will not fit in the allotted space given to me. A suitcase is a physical thing. A barrier, a boundary we cannot step over or else incur injury and penalty. My mind may be an archives, but sometimes without hard documents not everything can be triggered when you need them to be. Not everything in the mind can soothe you when feeling a page of an old book can make your new home feel a little less strange to you.
In my heart I will make new friends. I will learn new things, and they will squish and fit themselves in my overcrowded soul. They will pack themselves in knowing that at some point I will die, explode. And that they too will need to find a new home to transfer to.
I touch the zipper of my suitcase, and wonder under the dark night sky. We are not suitcases. We do not lose ourselves, because we can never find ourselves. We are not a pen or a sheet of paper that you can easily misplace. No, we are constantly learning who we are. Learning a book, that, like our universe has no end. Because to our knowledge, and much to our satisfaction there aren't answers or concrete endings to everything. We go on, because we are constantly moving, being unpacked and packed. We travel to new places, and learn a little bit every day.
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