Thursday, November 25, 2004

eternal

I always tell my students and my children that an artist's job is to notice things, to pay attention in close detail to the moments other people ignore. I don’t however tell them how painful that can be.

I remember when time started changing, of being ten and watching clouds in a bean field, how I knew time was traveling, that I was no longer a child because I was now somehow aware of everything I was losing.

Sometimes I think my main job of being human is to come terms with the person I have been since conception. Growing into an adult meant realizing that no one was really happy, that we each possessed a great emptiness and growing into a woman meant taking responsibility for the size of that emptiness.

Now I can feel myself traveling to another phase in my life. A realization that all these random decisions of my youth actually led somewhere:) now I know why all those old people were so stressed out. I have a stronger taste of death in my mouth, by that I mean I know I am on a journey and that it will end someday and I never want it to be over.

I wonder if all writers long for immortality, if one of the reason we are drawn to word is because it holds in it this ability to stay long after our bodies have faded away. I look at the writers I love and for me they will always be eternal.

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