There are many ways to trace
one’s journey from the point of birth to the point of deliberation, i.e. the
‘now’ of reflection. You can count your
blessings. You can count the times you tripped. You can mark them separately or
together on a time line. You can see life as knife-set or tidbits, yearnings or
fishnets, what-ifs or so-whats, the love that was lost in loving and the life
misplaced by living. Things like that.
And then you can turn around
and imagine futures. The years left can
also be segmented, in terms of career path, income level, the changing face of
household (babied households, teenaged ones, their youth and your aging,
infirmity and dependency and then lapse into the unimaginable
incomprehensibilities that only others fall victim to and consequently
suffer).
How do you read the past? Do you think of the number of years, the
number of certificates, the number of residences, number of countries visited,
number of people you’ve helped and the ones that helped you, the number of
times you felt you ought to have done or said that something which didn’t get
done or said at the time? And the
future…will it be chartered in terms of bank-balance extrapolation, portfolio
value, the number of classmates who you believe would pass on before your turn
arrives or the sins you haven’t quite been able to forgive yourself for
committing?
Or would you prefer to do it
with names? The names of the places
you’ve visited, titles of books that inspired you, favourite authors,
unforgettable personalities you’ve encountered, those who gave without asking,
those who took when they thought you weren’t looking? And would you chart future in the same
manner, i.e. in terms of names, places and people, titles and taglines, brands
and pay-off lines, certificates and obituaries, quotable quotes and the thinks that
you are determined never to say?
Would you do it all, this
business of back and forth, reviewing past and charting future, in images? Would you do it by joining the dots of things
and people seen, events witnessed, other peoples’ representations in sketch,
painting, collage, sculpture, photograph and installation of event, personality,
metaphor, memory, dream and horror?
Would you prefer to store the
avenues of recall and the pathways into the horizon in different formats, some
as number, some as word, some as image? Would you arrange them in terms of
colour, as textures, fragrance-sets, and the heart-rates they produced? Would you hire a professional archivist? Would you tear your hair because these things
defy ordering? Would you mix it all in tremendous sweep of mind and madness,
like a child playing in a heal of dried leaves, let it all fall in whatever way
moment and wind and insanity decrees? Would you weep then, or smile?
I don’t know, to be honest, how
I would do it all. But my friend ErrolAlphonso sent me a wonderful quote yesterday. Woody Allen. ‘Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?’
Got me thinking. I
believe there’s very little in this world that compels one to remember in
ordered ways, very few reasons to plan meticulously and too far into the
future. There’s a caressing called for
that lies between the insanity of perfect recording/blueprinting and the
insanity of w-t-f irresponsibility.
I think our days are numbered. They are lettered too,
although we don’t say it. They are also imaged.
Our days, come to think of it, more than all this, are
silenced. This we don’t like to acknowledge
or be reminded of.
Note: This was first published four years ago. Errol has since passed on.
msenevira@gmail.com
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