Early & Alone #76: It Isn't Even Past
On looking back and ahead and around
Congratulations! You did it! You’ve made it through the first official full week of 2023. How do you feel? Have you embarked on and kept up with your intentions for the new year?
I, for one, am exhausted. Winter hasn’t even really arrived in full force here in Rhode Island, but I’m already eager for spring. It seems to get harder and harder to get out of bed in the mornings, the darkness and raw chill too much to face. I had three doctor’s appointments this week and it’s raining and none of my clothes fit and I saw my weight at the dr. this morning even though I asked them not to tell me and I feel overwhelmed by my to-do list and so I just keep getting in my own way and not doing the thing even though it all makes it worse.
On the other hand, I have been writing and though I strongly dislike going to the doctor, it’s good to address things I’ve been avoiding…like, you know, health. I haven’t had alcohol since NYE (not really intentionally but it’s still a win, since one of my goals is to be more mindful about consumption in general), I’ve started budgeting, and I’m trying to get my creative projects organized. Things are pretty okay.
Prince Harry recently learned who William Faulkner is, according to his new memoir Spare (maybe you’ve heard of it?) and loves the quote, “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” (I’m not reading the book, but I AM listening to the recap on one of my fav podcasts, Celebrity Memoir Book Club.) I think Faulkner (and Harry?) are onto something here.
The new year is a strange time. We are all looking forward, setting goals and challenges and planning vacations and signing up for classes/gyms/subscriptions. But does the turning of a calendar page mean that everything that happened in 2022 is now “the past” and, as such, over and done with?
A reset is valuable. I do feel a kind of invigoration at the idea of a restart. But what even is time? As I get older, it feels more and more like the abstract, made-up concept it is.
I recently rewatched Station 11, the excellent HBO Max adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel. There’s a tension between past, present, and future throughout the series, which takes place both before, during, and after a catastrophic global pandemic. One of the characters becomes obsessed with the idea that there “is no before,” meaning he doesn’t want to return to the pre-pandemic life that many survivors remember and seem to long for. He focuses on the “post-pan,” the generation of children born after the pandemic has wiped away most of the population, because it’s easier than facing the trauma of his childhood and what happened during the pandemic. Meanwhile, another character says “No one ever dies,” as she is lying on her death bed. The line, “I remember damage,” echoes throughout the series.
Mindfulness teaches that there is no past and there is no future—there is just the present moment. Life is what is happening now. It’s a compelling, and probably healthy, way to think, but it’s not realistic. We are all a compendium of our past experiences and memories, the people we met, the ones we’ve lost, the ones we’ve kept. We’re also swirled with ideas and hopes and plans for the future—this gives us shape as well. So doesn’t living in the now entail also living simultaneously in the past and the future?
I sat down to write this morning without a real plan. I’ve been putting off writing here for reasons I can’t pinpoint. But I sat down to write.
So if you’re tired and a little depleted and can’t seem to get out of your own way, maybe sit down and just start writing, see what happens. Take a step back from the stress of what you didn’t do yesterday and what you still need to do tomorrow and celebrate what you did do, what you are doing. I promise you it’s enough.
(Bright Spots will return next time. Maybe when the sun is out.)
Love this!