The Reader ...

... by Bernhard Schlink is a book about Holocaust, individual responsibility, justice, collective guilt, forgiveness, the irreversibility of time, the extent of reality in memory ... The last topic fascinates me, and is discussed in depth in "The Secret Scripture" by Sebastian Barry.

"At first I wanted to write our story in order to be free of it. But the memories wouldn't come back for that. Then I realized our story was slipping away from me and I wanted to recapture it by writing, but that didn't coax up the memories either. For the last few years I've left our story alone. I've made peace with it. And it came back, detail by detail and in such a fully rounded fashion, with its own direction and its own sense of completion, that it no longer makes me sad. What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus, the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.

At any rate, that's what I think when I just happen to think about it. But if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel guilty, the feeling of guilt return; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then. The geological layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nevertheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear. Maybe I did write our story to be free of it, even if I never can be."

The protagonist, Michael, wrote a poem in the book which reminds me of another poem ... the ambivalence, the uncertainity despite the togetherness ...

"When we open ourselves
you yourself to me and I myself to you,
when we submerge
you into me and I into you
when we vanish
you into me, and I into you

Then
am I me
and you are you"

This morning ...

... by Raymond Carver definitely sums up how I felt when I was swinging among the autumn leaves at Heinwehfluh ... the fleeting moment of tranquility ...

This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk -- determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts
began to wander. I had to will
myself to see what I was seeing
and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what
mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,
for a minute or two!) For a minute or two
it crowded out the usual musings on
what was right, and what was wrong -- duty,
tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat
with my former wife. All the things
I hoped would go away this morning.
The stuff I live with every day. What
I've trampled on in order to stay alive.
But for a minute or two I did forget
myself and everything else. I know I did.
For when I turned back i didn't know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.

A Lovely Song For Jackson ...

... by V.R. Lang for a lovely couple, whose wedding is by a magical lake ...

If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea,
I'd find you, you'd find me.
Fishes would see us and shake their heads
Approvingly from their submarine beds.
Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry,
And sea anemone smile us by.
Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

If I were an angel and lost in the sun,
You would be there, and you would be one.
Birds that flew high enough would find us and sing
Gladder to find us than for anything,
And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere
Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair.
Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile,
And all over heaven we'd laugh for a while.
Only the fishes would search and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

Late Fragment ...

... will be amazing lines on one's tombstone ...

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

~ Raymond Carver

Better not ...

by Erich Fried ... its ambivalence is just beautiful ...

Life
would perhaps
be easier
if I had
never met you

Less sadness
each time
when we must part
less fear
of the next parting
and the next after that

And not so much either
of the powerless longing
when you're not there
which wants only the
impossible
and that right away
next minute
and then
when that can't be
is hurt
and finds breathing difficult

Life
would perhaps be
simpler
if I hadn't met you
only it wouldn't be
my life