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Marsh, Kaddish

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2025-11-13 09:14:39 -08:00
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@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ The thing about this feeling, though, is that it is borne out of improvement. I
This is the kernel of joy within that pain. This is the sweet to go along with the bitter. This is that careful balance that has become a core to so many of our tricentenarian lives. When we look back at who we were and cringe, that is the us of today looking back and recognizing the shortcomings we had which we no longer have. We have changed and grown as people: affirming. We might come up with all sorts of quippy advice, promising ourselves that we will not kill the part of ourselves that is cringe but instead the part that cringes, and yet overapply this sentiment to all aspects of ourselves.
I cringe at who I was not out of some irony-poisoned sense of superiority, but out of a recognition that I \emph{like} who I am now.
I cringe at who I was not out of some irony-poisoned sense of superiority, but out of a recognition that I am happier with who I am now.
Is that a spoiler? Am I spoiling for you, O imagined reader, one of the core conceits behind this work? It is woman against self, and the woman, she who has been a hero since birth, prevails, as all heroes must?
@ -14,11 +14,11 @@ Perhaps.
I do not feel like a hero, no matter my words. I feel like a tired, old woman who lived through the end of the world and came away from the experience wishing she were other than what she is.
And now, here I am: other than I was.
And now, here I am: other than I was. \emph{Non sum qualis eram.} I am not what I used to be.
I have chosen for the epigraph to this memoir a quote by Eliot Weinberger that I think stands more poignantly than some silly bit of mistranslated Heraclitus, because Weinberger speaks \emph{specifically} to the act of reading --- or, more specifically, translating --- a poem. It is not a statement on personal growth. It is a statement on active engagement and the ways in which engaging changes us.
There is, curiously, too much placidity in Heraclitus' philosophy in this particular context.
There is, curiously, too much placidity in Heraclitus' philosophy for this particular context.
This world is not static.