“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Anaīs Nin
Last week a dear friend, someone I’ve known for over forty years, came for an all too brief visit, during which I rediscovered an immensely rich bounty. I was just nineteen when we met and he was thirty-seven. So much time has passed since then, yet it seems just like yesterday. Since he left, I’ve found myself contemplating the nature of reality.
Time itself seemed to move differently when we were younger. Experiences seemed to last longer. If the universe were completely empty of matter and energy, would time still exist? Are we all trapped by the same illusions that make it impossible to have a truly objective opinion about ourselves and our experiences?
While watching the sun rise through thick fog this morning, I wondered how much of what I did in the past actually happened? Who was I back then? If I am just a collection of flesh and bones, how have I changed? If my consciousness is a stream of continuous moments, what is memory? The older I get the more I think everything is relative and not absolute. Old friends grant us views of ourselves that we cannot obtain any other way. They give us access not only to our past, but are valuable mirrors reflecting our ongoing stories. We are all somewhere in the spectrum of story-telling, self-realization and memory.
Somewhere along the line, my old friend and I became the same age. The space-time continuum dissolved and we were particles of stardust, sunlight and billion-year-old carbon swirling together in the cosmos. Sometimes, out of this fog we call life, there arises a vivid transparency, an illuminating landscape of wonder, and for a brief second we glimpse our true selves.
