Artist's Point

Time is always molding something..moving me somewhere. It is because of time that some of the world's most beautiful scenes exist. It cannot be slowed down and it shouldn't be. My one attempt at slowing time resulted in a painful slap in the face (metaphorically speaking...clearly). In the midst of my paranoia of forgetting, I overlooked the idea of letting go. This idea, in my mind, was just another term for forgetting, but it's really a healthy way of remembering. My home will never be the same, neither will my relationships, my family, etc... But this is ok. Like "Artist's Point," in Grand Marais, Minnesota, where the above picture was taken, time is always shaping our world, our life, into something beautiful... that said, nothing is without its dangers or "slippery surfaces."

Grand Marais, MN (last stop on trip)

Mirek rewrote history

I have been reading Milan Kundera's "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" and it has proved to be a suspiciously ideal choice to guide me through this 3 week trip. It is about a man on a trip to both hide from the present and revisit his past. It is about fear of forgetting and the weight of one's past. This is a book that I have owned for a while and tried to read several times. For some reason I could never connect with it until now. I now understand that I was supposed to read at this specific moment, when it would significantly effect me by articulating the almost exact discussions I have been having in my mind.

Some excerpts:

"They shout that they want to shape a better future, but it's not true. The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it."

"In the political jargon of the those days, the word 'intellectual' was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cutoff from the people...Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air."

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

In other news, I had a great weekend in Cleveland with Chris, and a wonderful time with Phil and Ed in Ithaca yesterday. I am here a just two more days before I embark to Chicago then Minnesota to meet up with Dan(imal) (he loves animals, and I love him).

::heart::

-mike

P.S
more quotes:

"Don't put your trust in walls, cause walls will only crush you when they fall"

"I never learned to count my blessings, I choose instead to dwell in my disasters."

-Ray Lamontagne