Continuity in Change - Change in Continuity?
Date posted
15 Oct 2018
This photo showed up this morning on my Facebook feed, together with some others, including one of grapes that I had harvested (Note 2). The photos are a reminder of things, places, views, and emotions from October 2016. Not long ago, but still seemingly back in a remote past. Life unfolds at an increasingly break-neck speed. Things that were well-known and close only two years back suddenly seem far away. While traveling around the world, and living in two countries, may seem to make for an interesting life, there is another side to the story. It is difficult, if not impossible, to be two – not to mention more than two – places at the same time, mentally, that is, through remembrance of things past. Layers of experience packed on top of each other tend to dull earlier layers. I admit to not being able to recall the smell and taste of fall of two years back, and of those grapes that I harvested two years ago (I did not even recall the photos).
The House Cat and Me
The house cat is a female, black with a white sport on the tip of the tail. She has always lived on this property. She probably thinks she owns it (ah, is not this a good example of our propensity to imbue animals with human-like characteristics!). I sometimes envy her her little world where she – or so I imagine, continuing to give her human-like properties – knows everything. Once she climbed through a window in the basement and gave birth to a tiny little fellow. I gave it to somebody that came visiting. Where it is now, I wonder? She will not have any memory of the loss of her first-born. Likely good for her. While I continue to envy her this unity of place and time – how she is bound to live in the present, not being aware of neither past nor future – that I have not yet managed to create for myself (in my case of course continuing to be cognizant of both the past and the future).
Lars T. Soeftestad
Notes
(1) Adapted from a note I published on Facebook 15 October 2018. This article published 15 October 2018. It was updated 3 November 2018.
(2) Image credit: Lars Soeftestad, Supras Ltd. From my garden in Boyana, Sofia, mid-October 2016. The lower part is filled with foliage of grape vines. Beyond is part of the garden where, around the long wooden tables, numerous great parties have taken place over the years. The cat mentioned above can be seen lying in the upper left corner, soaking up sun.
(3) Relevant Devblog articles: "Traveling through Cultures" at: https://www.devblog.no/en/article/traveling-through-cultures
(4) Permalink. URL: http://devblog.no/en/article/continuity-change-change-continuity
(5) This article was published 15 October 2018.
(1) Adapted from a note I published on Facebook 15 October 2018. This article published 15 October 2018. It was updated 3 November 2018.
(2) Image credit: Lars Soeftestad, Supras Ltd. From my garden in Boyana, Sofia, mid-October 2016. The lower part is filled with foliage of grape vines. Beyond is part of the garden where, around the long wooden tables, numerous great parties have taken place over the years. The cat mentioned above can be seen lying in the upper left corner, soaking up sun.
(3) Relevant Devblog articles: "Traveling through Cultures" at: https://www.devblog.no/en/article/traveling-through-cultures
(4) Permalink. URL: http://devblog.no/en/article/continuity-change-change-continuity
(5) This article was published 15 October 2018.
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