Building small altars here and now

If you notice the true limits to your energy and time, you will be heartbroken.

It's part of being a person.

It's part of mature adulthood.

Not for all the things that you vaguely desire, but for the things you actively desire that aren't possible.

There is a lot of pain in realizing the lines drawn between this reality and what can be contained inside one human life with the modest altars of meaning we can construct each day.

Possibility can drive us to try, but I can't live in two countries at once. It's not going to happen.

It's hard and I'm going to say it: there are differences we can't reconcile and will never reconcile.

There are desires we have that don't live in the same body, lifetime, or cultural context.

A precondition for a life well lived is to avoid the things that simply aren't possible because you are here, now.

How you get your past back

Aging hands our past back to us in other people grow, and the richness of our inner life.

We get more complex as we turn inward over and over again.

I see my childhood in my friend's children as they enter and reenter the swimming pool. I ate a tiny pizza at the pool and became 7 again.

In our very limited amount of available time, my childhood is felt via textures under my feet—mostly wet and humid, and where brick meets mud.

The body remembers what the mind has filed away. Other people become mirrors we didn't know we needed, reflecting what we thought were lost.

Guess what?

They are still there.

I see the wisdom of my life in the hundred-year-old oak trees in my parents' backyard and remember they have been there my whole life, shading and requesting no other gift than a presence that makes things better.

I see myself in spaces between their leaves and where I've stayed in the same tiny holes.

Mercifully, the most important things don't change. And we can be distracted or lazy adults and still keep the most important near to us.

That's blessing in pure form like these gellyfish from the Kansas City Zoo and Aquarium.

You can use it.

Your confusion—use it to enter confusion's mind. Let your character understand because you lived inside that great human ball of it, and claimed your piece.

You can document soundscapes in the backyard via black ink. Those sounds are yours too.

The screaming baby—use it to be grateful you're childless.

The past—use it to remember the present exists. You're alive. This isn't over.

Homework, home country—use them to remember high school photos, darkroom hours. The one-act play you taught.

Your disappointment with humanity—use it to remember disappointing yourself and how you forgave yourself too.

We are forgiven.

You are forgiven.

You can use it, all.