Every place has its elsewhere, its neighbor not completely known, its strange part. We think of "the known" as conquering "the unknown," two vast terrains, each pitched in darkness, one advancing on the other, and the other in grave retreat. Probably a more accurate portrayal, such as exists between two people, let's say, allows for a more conflictual, yet webbed relationship than that. And partly because the two "sides" are exchanging something vital to each, like a hot potato that neither completely wants, yet neither can entirely let go of either, over time the relationship itself changes both. Eventually, the known and the unknown look more and more alike, yet essentially completely separate as they ever were. At the boundary point between the two there are "leaks," there are clusters of origination- like morning beads of dew on leaves of grass- that erupt very briefly at this peripheral zone, then melt away. Life is this sparkle of movement, even this reflection is part of it. Life is the crumbling of something that once was whole. All we can feel now are the minutest shards of it, but even this tiny part is composed of the same constituents. Contenting ourselves with the slightest whiff, we must reconstruct what may once have been. Always, the whiff is intoxicating. Near it, we may shed tears, we may commune with things we had long forgotten or never knew existed. Yet, like a scorching flame, we must view it from some distance. In any case, time eventually directs every particle into the flame. The consumer becomes part of the all-consuming.

How cold must timelessness have been. With what momentum must life have caused itself to be.
(8/17/88)