February 18
On the shore, in the coming and going of the waves, I forgot the world and myself — and was simply there.
Reveries of the Solitary Walker (freely rendered)
Listening mode
On the shore, in the coming and going of the waves, I forgot the world and myself — and was simply there.
Sometimes you only notice that an hour has passed when you look up. You've been sorting something, drawing, or listening to someone, and all that time nobody was paying attention to you, not even you. You can't enjoy this state while it lasts. The moment you think, now I'm completely absorbed, you already aren't.
What's strange is how closely it resembles another kind of absence. On your usual way home you suddenly find yourself at your front door and can't remember whether the light was red. There, too, you had gone missing from yourself. There, too, the memory is gone afterwards.
The difference doesn't lie in how much you kept, but in where you were during that time. On the way home your attention was nowhere, or it circled around yourself. In the other hour it was so caught up in one thing that there was no room left for you.
What tells you is usually something small. The light has changed, and for a moment the room seems unfamiliar, as if you were coming back from somewhere farther away than the table.
