Time's fun when you're having flies.
Jul. 28th, 2005 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeister[regarding the subject; What did one frog say to another?]
I keep on learning about changes in the lives of people whose lives lie on the peripheral of my own--you know, those people you hear about, but don't interact directly with all of the time. It makes me more aware of how quickly things change outside of my immediate life. I always irrationally want everything outside of my immediate sphere to remain exactly as it was when I left; the new buildings that pop up overnight in Seattle are disconcerting when I return for a visit, for example. But life keeps moving forward; old things deteriorate and fall apart, and new things spring up to take their places.
When I visited El Salvador in high school, we stopped by a small town for lunch on our way to another town--I think the town was called San Jose de los Flores, or something along those lines. Our group leader had visited El Salvador the year before, and attended mass at a church in the town. That particular location had been the site of a number of bloody battles during the civil war; part of the stop involved hiking to the top of a hill to visit a memorial where hundreds of people had died. Anyway, the church had been caught in the crossfire and had been riddled full of bullet holes, but had survived and continued to be used. However, by the time we visited, one year later, the whole building had collapsed; the only parts that remained were part of the tabernacle and a bell tower, which stood amongst rubble. It was hard to believe that a building had stood on that ground just the year before. How quickly things change.
But still, I try so hard to save things, holding onto old photographs and letters and journals, perhaps with some vague hope that knowing where I come from will help me figure out where I'm going.
I keep on learning about changes in the lives of people whose lives lie on the peripheral of my own--you know, those people you hear about, but don't interact directly with all of the time. It makes me more aware of how quickly things change outside of my immediate life. I always irrationally want everything outside of my immediate sphere to remain exactly as it was when I left; the new buildings that pop up overnight in Seattle are disconcerting when I return for a visit, for example. But life keeps moving forward; old things deteriorate and fall apart, and new things spring up to take their places.
When I visited El Salvador in high school, we stopped by a small town for lunch on our way to another town--I think the town was called San Jose de los Flores, or something along those lines. Our group leader had visited El Salvador the year before, and attended mass at a church in the town. That particular location had been the site of a number of bloody battles during the civil war; part of the stop involved hiking to the top of a hill to visit a memorial where hundreds of people had died. Anyway, the church had been caught in the crossfire and had been riddled full of bullet holes, but had survived and continued to be used. However, by the time we visited, one year later, the whole building had collapsed; the only parts that remained were part of the tabernacle and a bell tower, which stood amongst rubble. It was hard to believe that a building had stood on that ground just the year before. How quickly things change.
But still, I try so hard to save things, holding onto old photographs and letters and journals, perhaps with some vague hope that knowing where I come from will help me figure out where I'm going.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 12:28 am (UTC)That's a great way to look at it. You're looking to the past, but for inspiration, not to long for things the way they were. Someone once said that "your whole life has been training for right now", and it would be silly to let that training leave you when you need it most. All the same, you are still looking forward, however tentatively, knowing full well that that's the way you're going.