Reading a memoir by Kim Barnes this morning I was stopped by this statement that I had to read twice and then again out loud to Bill:
Even now it scares me to understand how easily a soul may pass from one dimension of itself into another, as though the boundaries separating what we are and what we might become, given an infinite set of motivations and conditions, are little more than the line between waking and sleeping, between story, memory, dream.
The words are so beautiful. I want to say them over and over, feel them on my tongue, roll them around in my mind. They stir my soul in an uncommon way by speaking to the little deaths, the transitions, the rebirths that characterize every life. These words make me think about the way that my own story is punctuated; the imaginary breaks that separate one event from another.
Writing my own life history has caused to me consider how quickly a life can change. The pivotal moments stand out in stark contrast to the months or years of static contentment or resigned suffering. Looking back changes my perception about the future. I am certain that life can and does change in an instant. There are those events that cause us to define everything else as "before" and "after". We never see them coming. It is frightening and the only retreat is the present moment.
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