At this place, this holy place, I am a secret priest, and I know with what I convene, pantomiming in swallowed tongues. What was experienced here has found a snippet of eternity through each successive ritualized remembrance. It's not just the fact of memory, it's the type. And we all know the good type. Meaningful places from your past – that when you return to them, you are more returned to a time than a place. I am back here. Where? Within.
Anyway, it's not important where I am; I aim to map the feeling. What inspires it for each is personal and quite arbitrary. As for me, I sit here in a place that was personally transformative for me. In my mind's eye, I can see that long-closed show unfolding. But the image is just the fact of the memory – the meaning of it is what transmits and still does. Maybe the meaning of these important moments is always there from the beginning but often gets overshadowed by all the other trappings of immediacy. Therefore, we tend to feel them more in retrospect.
Find, for yourself, the proper sites to worship. Where is your Delphi? How few talkative oracles even the most eventful life is allotted! Holy are the places where meaningful memories speak and speak before even being summoned!
Now back to my seat: from here, the show. What began, the first sculpting. That first independence. The final umbilical rejection. And God spoke at that moment. But His words, distant as stars, had to wait to hitchhike with willing light. Thank you for these memories. Yes, their influence still exists, but their meaning is more symbolic, thus more religious. Once the chain of immediate cause and effect has been escaped, true worship can begin. Holy, holy. I just want to bask. A stage once sat here; I look and confirm it's there no longer. But after a second, a high tide of memory hits, and I am not as sure about my confirmation as I once was. What senses can I trust? What is today versus the bulk of that accumulated past? I am wording myself through feelings that require more for a foothold.
I will get back outside myself, in time. I will keep up again. I begin to write, and many of these sentences will later be purged. Think of the memories in your life that keep pace with your age – these are final drafts. The days that you don't remember, the mundane, the trivial, and even the good relaxing days – normal enough, though, to sink into oblivion after a time – these are just, in the end, first drafts. A draft day might be a sad thing to know in the moment. But in retrospect, our best writing is always whittled. And the same goes for us – we live lives necessarily whittled. In the end, looking back, we are whittled to memory. And may this shaving be producing a kind of icon! I think that's the inevitable way. And, finally, we are tasked to worship away.