shake the dust

crying tonight, on the back deck, talking about the past and the future and my voice breaking as I read one clementine von radics poem aloud, and recite another from memory. these people, this place, this now. it’ll all be a memory someday. nostalgia feels best anyways.

“Just because we are close to someone does not mean we are able to be transparent with them, or ever ask them for full transparency. The fact that our parents’ lives existed before we were born makes our parents essentially unknowable. This mystery is the entry point to realizing that anyone we love is to some degree unknowable - their lives before us are a story of which they can offer us only pieces. Anyone we love is more a construct than a reality. I used to tell friends ghosted by people they were dating or going through other difficult similar experiences to “just choose the explanation that makes you most able to move on with your life.” This is iffy advice at best but sometimes it’s the only option, the only forward progress.” Helena Fitzgerald