Tuesday, May 1, 2001
Where Is She Now? - to LTF
Response to following passages quoted from Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Willa Cather:
I wonder if it is a "turning" or if it is a final, prolonged "fare well" before the "next great phase" which, I'm beginning to think, is not a mind phase but something else. If there is anything else I hope it's more extensive and exhilarating than 'minding'. Not that I'm disappointed. I can barely contain myself, now. I don't want to be able to contain myself, at all. That would be the ultimate in exhilaration; what Hindus imagine as the ex/implosion at the end of a series of kulpas. The dis-solution.
I hope cats internalize aging much the way my mother is. Kona, the Ancient Cat living with MPS and her family, seemed so pitiful to us, but she also seemed completely unaware of any of the misery we projected onto her.
"He was soon to have done with calendared time, and it had already ceased to count for him. He sat in the middle of his own consciousness; none of his former states of mind were lost or outgrown. They were all within reach of his hand, and all comprehensible.Thanks for reminding me of these. Every word you quoted reminded me of my mother's Now. "...and all comprehensible." Completely. More, I think, than her states of mind ever have been. I think that's why she's so flexible now. States of mind are no longer ladder rungs to other states of mind anymore. There's no such thing as higher and lower to her. They are what they are and connected because they all exist in her, not because they lead/led to anything.
...
"Sometimes, when Magdalena or Bernard came in and asked him a question, it took him several seconds to bring himself back to the present. He could see that they thought his mind was failing, but it was only extraordinarily active in some other part of the great picture of his life - some part of which they knew nothing.
...
"When the occasion warranted he could return to the present, but there was not much present left; Father Joseph dead, the Olivares both dead, Kit Carson dead, only the minor players of his life remained in the present time."
I wonder if it is a "turning" or if it is a final, prolonged "fare well" before the "next great phase" which, I'm beginning to think, is not a mind phase but something else. If there is anything else I hope it's more extensive and exhilarating than 'minding'. Not that I'm disappointed. I can barely contain myself, now. I don't want to be able to contain myself, at all. That would be the ultimate in exhilaration; what Hindus imagine as the ex/implosion at the end of a series of kulpas. The dis-solution.
I hope cats internalize aging much the way my mother is. Kona, the Ancient Cat living with MPS and her family, seemed so pitiful to us, but she also seemed completely unaware of any of the misery we projected onto her.
