And maybe Epimetheus wasn’t so slow or foolish, so backward. Because “epi” also means upon, beside, about. Maybe he was thinking of the world aside from the struggle of gods and mortals. Maybe he was wisely thinking around that, besides that, of the rest of the world, which can continue with balance and equilibrium from day to day, regardless of the torments that gods and men bring upon themselves.
“There are big dogs and little dogs, but little dogs must not fret over the existence of the big ones. Everyone is obligated to howl in the voice that the Lord God has given him.”
‘”What do we do now?” I asked, but Dirk obviously had no answer. We knew the name of the camp, but that was it. No idea where it was, how far from the station it was. No contact name. No phone number. No coins for the payphone even if we had a number.’
“My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along.”
And suddenly we saw everything differently. The simplicity of the story seemed significant, even profound. The simplicity of the language seemed elemental, important. The repetition made beautiful, resonant little circles of words. And everything we’d learned about writing was bullshit.
And this is true of man and beast, as well sleeping as waking.
If you ignore these apples, they’re small and harmless. But the more attention you pay them, the more you try to get rid of them, the larger they get, until they block your way entirely, or destroy you.
He hasn’t lost the love or the language, he’s just brought them down to earth. He’s using them to make the ordinary beautiful–rags, bones, broken bottles. And things as extraordinarily ordinary as aging, as remembering.
But this magical madeleine and tea, which he accepts while full of adult cares and woes, brings him such joy that he no longer feels mediocre, accidental, mortal, which is what being an adult feels like, on a bad day.
It seems more important now than ever to tell our stories and share our stories, and listen to the stories of others. To amplify the voices of anybody struggling to be heard, and to celebrate when the words or images or silences speak to us or bewilder us or transform us. To harness our anger or sadness or joy in a wild productive fury, resonating with the strange perfect words we make our own or the deafening silences we inhabit.
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