…with an unbearable sweetness

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“She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living or dying. After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt. At the same time she seemed to be recovering her roots, and the sap rose anew in her body, which was no longer trembling.”

― Albert Camus

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The three weights in this photograph… I found them amongst the bits and pieces left behind in my new home by the previous owner.

Were there other weights to be found, were these part of a bigger set, or was this it?

Do these represent something?

Are they perhaps each a burden put down so that someone could move on… and pick up new weights more meaningful to them now?

We sometimes carry with us heavy loads which no longer serve any purpose to us… other than to weigh us down with the gravity of it.

Things we took on long ago.

They had meaning once upon a time.

There was a reason to pick them up and carry them.

We needed them then even if we didn’t want them.

Then their due date came… and went, yet we still carried them afterwards when we could have laid them to rest.

Why do we carry things with us when we no longer need to do so?

Is it habit?

Duty?

A reflex?

A sense of not wanting to litter our path with leaden crumbs…

Or a fear of leaving a trail that might allow others to… know us from what we leave behind.

Maybe we come to view our burdens as treasures, too precious to let go even if they stop us from moving forward as they pile up on our shoulders, our feet sinking into the earth, gradually unable to keep going… anywhere but down.

At the moment I’m going through a period of adjustment.

I’ve dropped so much weight, both metaphorically and literally…

It’s a strange limbo, a threshold between old and new, between past and…

a present…

a gift which has ties that are connected in a web-like structure to everything before, to now, and to a possible after.

I like finding the things which others have left behind. They tell a story… which weaves its way into my own.

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“Then, with an unbearable sweetness, the waters of the night began to fill her, submerging the cold, rising gradually to the center of her being, and overflowing wave upon wave to her moaning mouth. A moment later, the whole sky stretched out above her as she lay with her back against the cold earth.”
― Albert Camus

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 Hello again…

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