Friday, January 17, 2014

The Book of Me

I came across this fragment in my drafts, from last year:

I met Karima for coffee in the club one morning. She had a rushed hour to spare, and with the weather being gorgeous in the morning these days, we thought to catch up on our vitamin D. So we sat in the perfect sunlight and chatted, and soon Karima remembered--

I have no clue what Karima  soon remembered--the best remedy for vitamin D deficiency? The first time we met?  That she had forgotten to turn off the oven before she left that morning?

Reading over the piece didn't remind me of anything, and I doubt I will ever know.
Does it matter? It's annoying, yes, but I am old enough not to lose sleep over it.
But it makes me wonder just how much of our lives we can recall, if we don't keep track of it. And then I ask myself again if it matters, and what it's all about, anyway?
Well it kind of does matter, and I think it is all about death, though we don't necessarily realise this.

Time passes, we change, we leave our former selves behind in yesterday. Capturing those moments is so important to us, hence photos, and writing (yes I know, I keep harping on about writing).  What is really sad is that by not remembering what was so compelling in that morning meeting  to make me want to preserve the memory of it, I have lost it, like the moments of life we lose and forget.

But no.

All is not lost. Well here it is,  but here is not forever. And my mind is not the infinite universe.

I know that my memories are preserved in a book that grows longer and longer with each passing day. And there will come a time beyond this forgotten life when that book will be laid open for me to view. It is the Book of Me,  the resting place of all my moments:  the lost and the found and the indelible, and  every shade of everything  in between. Even this moment-- as I falter, then write, then backspace, then write again, only to forget the next time I read this--will be saved. There will be time enough to read it all, relive it, in all its grief and joy and shame and triumph, to see how much of it was worthy of my earthly moments, as I stand before God the Judge.

What a daunting thought. 

So it doesn't just kind of matter; it matters a whole lot. 

I hope at least that whatever it was we shared that morning, Karima and I, it was something that reads well and speaks beautifully of me in Eternity. 

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