Unfinished

Egg. Face. My. On. 
Know. I.

Construct a sentence. 

But I feel I'm not done here yet. 

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What is unfinished is intimate, personal, open, still unknown. There is something very often tragic and mysterious when we think about something (or someone) as being finished.

"His gaze, released from certitude"
--Calvino.

Which is not to say that it is arbitrary or undisciplined, just that it tarries on what he loves and is worthy of love. The quality of attachments is the quality of our understanding. I think Iris (or Cheever) would say, in addition, the quality of light is the quality of our understanding... 


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Falling Man

A man fell from a plane. Flew from South Africa and fell to his death in leafy Richmond. Who was this man, what was his story? What was he thinking for those seven, eight hours in the darkness? Someone looks back, surely, and asks: how did it end up like this?

A few years ago another man, from Angola, fell to his death. He had one pound in his pocket and no documents, no name. Six months to trace a name, a place. 

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There is a time when things draw to a close. No-one can predict it, or prepare for it. 

The Last Act, the final words.. "I leave the last word to you," we sometimes say.

That’s it, I thought. My sadness is infinite. I no longer expect that my tears will come to an end. I am no longer surprised that my reservoir of grief is so full and refillable. And because I am no longer surprised, I am much better able to live with it. I weave it into my days. I can cry and laugh at the same time.
--from The Last Act of Love

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Much is being made of how Muslims ought to speak up, step up to the plate and clearly and categorically repeat some mantra so that everyone can feel comfortable. Your heart cannot be divided. Fidelity, in the final analysis, to who? There is a feeling that religion is over and not just in terminal decline. But the end of religion is also a way. I think Muslims have always understood this: life is absence, a falling away, but also, some kind of wooden, rickety bridge that miraculously floats above the depths. An empty house, abandoned, with some windows broken, others boarded up, reveals what was concealed for so long. Beneath the husk are other layers, stories that remain -despite everything-unfinished.

A famous line from the Qur'an has it that seas and the ink are inexhaustible.

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As bookshops go this one-from the photo, anyway-appears unflashy and austere enough. If you can ever get out of academentia unscathed then...