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"I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited." – Jorge Luis Borges
One of my earliest memories was of the waves. I was a little boy spending a day in convalescence when a visiting uncle thought it good for me to get some fresh air, so we drove to the beach. It was not a pleasant day with its overcast sky and wild wind. No one else was in sight, just the waves, rising one after the other in infinite cascades, tremendous and formidable, only to become a gentle song as they reached the shore. I tuned everything out for that moment and listened as the waves crashed, glided, returned, and renewed. I couldn't have been there for more than twenty minutes (it was far too cold to stay for long), but it felt like hours, and in my memories, immeasurable.
Virginia Woolf's fascination with the waves is not difficult to understand; my childhood mind saw it quite clearly. Contained within them is everything that is orderly, chaotic, and in flux. Their ability to weather the endless toil of days is all too appealing to we who are so fragile, so irrational, so stuck in our ways. I went into this book thinking it would reveal some profound meaning that I had overlooked, but what it has really done is reinforce what I already believe: I love this life. I love my friends. I love watching the flamingo sunset fall beneath the waves from where I sit atop these San Francisco heights. I know that we are but atomic drops in a vast ocean, and that brings me great comfort. It is enough to have caught the same rising tide as the likes of Vincent, Dostoevsky, Kurosawa, and you.
"Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art… there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself." – Virginia Woolf
One of my earliest memories was of the waves. I was a little boy spending a day in convalescence when a visiting uncle thought it good for me to get some fresh air, so we drove to the beach. It was not a pleasant day with its overcast sky and wild wind. No one else was in sight, just the waves, rising one after the other in infinite cascades, tremendous and formidable, only to become a gentle song as they reached the shore. I tuned everything out for that moment and listened as the waves crashed, glided, returned, and renewed. I couldn't have been there for more than twenty minutes (it was far too cold to stay for long), but it felt like hours, and in my memories, immeasurable.
Virginia Woolf's fascination with the waves is not difficult to understand; my childhood mind saw it quite clearly. Contained within them is everything that is orderly, chaotic, and in flux. Their ability to weather the endless toil of days is all too appealing to we who are so fragile, so irrational, so stuck in our ways. I went into this book thinking it would reveal some profound meaning that I had overlooked, but what it has really done is reinforce what I already believe: I love this life. I love my friends. I love watching the flamingo sunset fall beneath the waves from where I sit atop these San Francisco heights. I know that we are but atomic drops in a vast ocean, and that brings me great comfort. It is enough to have caught the same rising tide as the likes of Vincent, Dostoevsky, Kurosawa, and you.
"Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art… there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself." – Virginia Woolf