For two months we kept the dog run, as if she might come back. But we had killed her ourselves, or rather the vet had, with that bright needle, in Pauline's arms. Pauline had thought she was ready; she was not.
Our children's favorite toys, from when they were two, are stacked and shelved in the garage -- and their bicycles from when they were ten, and their high school trophies. And our high school trophies, and Pauline's diaries from middle school in the 1970s, and appointment calendars of my father's from the 1980s with haircuts and meetings with his students and plumbers' phone numbers in lopsided handwriting -- calendars I'd grabbed after he died ten years ago, desperate to save a piece of him, though I still can't bear to look at them. I need to hold shreds of what he'd left, but now those shreds only remind me of their inadequacy.
Daoism teaches that the world is processes that rise and fade, turn a few circles and depart, that growing is always also losing, living is the reanimation of mounds of substance many times dead before -- but I can't see it that way. I dwell in a world of things and people, who I paradoxically want to change without changing, to move along without moving, never to age. Memory is insufficient, a tease, horribly semisweet -- itself fading, dying, the resonances of a bell that will not be struck again.
6 comments:
Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing this.
I needed this today. Thank you.
Gemini and me on life: Observation/listening only gives the phenomenon; Comparison is the logical tool that grants phenomena its unique status.
In essence, you are highlighting that the declaration of uniqueness for life is an achievement of logic, derived from observation, but enforced by the rigor of comparison...Thanks for inward searches...
Daoist teaching sounds like part of my brother's overall philosophy. He calls it *state of quo* and it says many abhor change, even while asserting they welcome it. State of quo dovetails with my notion around what I call contextual reality. He and I are not far apart there, while we differ on other matters. As children, we never had conventional pets---no dogs or cats. A duck (that acted like a loyal dog); a turkey, who would jump in the water hole where we cooled off in summer... Brother and I are the last of our nuclear family. He married and sired children. I married twice and produced none. No one is perfect, unless one believes certain heretics who shall remain unnamed. I sympathize with your loss. The thing about pets: they are loyal. Because on a primary conscious level, they have trust. We tend to be sceptical. There is always the *what if* factor. I think pets do not need to factor that in. Lucky them.
Considering Earth as an asset without a monetary value within the solar system shifts our perspective from economics to intrinsic, functional, and existential worth...It primary value is its status as the only known inhabited world...Hosting an unparalleled variety of life, a vast genetic library that represents billions of years of successful evolution...and is the birthplace and current home of humanity, it holds immeasurable cultural, historical, and existential significance for us...In a systems-based view of the solar system, Earth acts as a critical component or machine...Geology, atmosphere, and biosphere serve as the ultimate natural laboratory for planetary science, biology, and chemistry...From a long-term perspective for space-faring civilizations, Earth holds critical strategic value...Essentially, Earth's value isn't measured in dollars; it's measured in existence. It's the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system because it's the only one capable of maintaining a sophisticated civilization unaided...Being here now counts...
Well put, Arnold. Well put.
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