The truth of nostalgia

"[H]ere is the truth of nostalgia. We don't feel it for who we were, but who we weren't. We feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us, but that we didn't take.

Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the table top and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past – a solid single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held.

It is impossible – no matter how blessed you are by luck, or the government, or some remote, invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind – it is impossible not to feel a little sad, looking at that bit of wax, that bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take.

[...] But then you remember – I remember – that we are, even now, in another bit of molten wax. We are in a moment that is still falling, still volatile – and we will never be anywhere else. We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all: the now. Where we never can know what shape the next moment will take."

Welcome to Night Vale #21,
"A Memory of Europe"

"You've got a stone in your shoe. We'll do what we can until you can get it out." Tracy Pollan, Michael J. Fox's wife

"Tracy was just like, 'You've got a stone in your shoe. We'll do what we can until you can get it out. In the meantime, if you limp with the stone, that's all right. You can hold my hand, and we'll get over that.' "

Michael J. Fox, on his wife Tracy Pollan after they received his Parkinson's diagnosis.

http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/style-trends/info-2017/michael-j-fox-aarp-magazine.html

The process of dying, by Martha Jo Atkins

Photo by NOAA

   What's happening to me?

Your body is figuring out how to separate from your spirit.

     Oh. Yeah. That's it.

Are you having any anxiety?

     I'm restless in here...(pats his heart). I haven't done this before. I'm a little nervous.

Your body knows what to do.

     How long does this take?

The separation?

     Yeah. How long.

It's different for everyone. Your soul knows. The separation has already started. I can see it happening. Can you feel it?

     Yeah. I can.

     Thanks for telling me this stuff.

Yes sir. We're glad you're here with us.

     Me, too.

"He told us this morning his bags are packed and he's waiting for the train to come---and there's a female conductor. The staff pulled out his bags for him so he can see them. He's very excited to travel and see his family."

Martha Jo Atkins

Bernie Sanders on spirituality

"Every great religion in the world — Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism — essentially comes down to: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' And what I have believed in my whole life — I believed it when I was a 22-year-old kid getting arrested in Chicago fighting segregation — I've believed it in my whole life.

"That we are in this together — not just, not words. The truth is at some level when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt. I hurt. And when my kids hurt, you hurt. And it's very easy to turn our backs on kids who are hungry, or veterans who are sleeping out on the street, and we can develop a psyche, a psychology which is 'I don't have to worry about them; all I'm gonna worry about is myself; I need to make another 5 billion dollars.' But I believe that what human nature is about is that everybody in this room impacts everybody else in all kinds of ways that we can't even understand. It's beyond intellect. It's a spiritual, emotional thing. So I believe that when we do the right thing, when we try to treat people with respect and dignity, when we say that that child who is hungry is my child … I think we are more human when we do that, than when we say 'hey, this whole world , I need more and more, I don't care about anyone else.' That's my religion. That's what I believe in. And I think most people around the world, whatever their religion, their color — share that belief. That we are in it together as human beings. And it becomes more and more practical. If we destroy the planet because we don't deal with climate change … Trust me, we are all in it together, and … That is my spirituality."

Bernie Sanders

The Narrow Bridge of Art, Virginia Woolf

"We all know people…who are at loggerheads with existence; unhappy people who never get what they want; are baffled, complaining, who stand at an uncomfortable angle when they see everything askew. There are others again who, though they appear perfectly content, seem to have lost all touch with reality. They lavish all their affections upon little dogs and old china. They take interest in nothing but the vicissitudes of their own health and the ups and downs of social snobbery. There are, however, others who strike us, why precisely it would be difficult to say, as being by nature or circumstances in a position where they can use their faculties to the full upon things that are of importance. They are not necessarily happy or successful, but there is a zest in their presence, an interest in their doings. They seem to be alive all over."

-- Virginia Woolf, The Narrow Bridge of Art