Now and then... Again

When I was in Nicaragua, I wrote an entry about how each individual's personhood is a summation of a multitude of moments, the sum total of unique experiences.... (see Now and Then in the archives from July). I feel like people easily loose their own sense of history- the sense of where they have been, what they have seen and how they have felt. Adulthood feels distant from childhood. Being focused on the present makes it easy to loose the awareness of other places. I've been thinking about this a lot. Perhaps because I am going through the developmental pains of becoming an adult- not just an adult- a professional, a doctor. Perhaps because the present demands of my life are so encompassing that I shake my head in disbelief when I think of long walks on dusty roads spent in unhurried conversation. I am constantly trying to stay in touch with the smattering of life experiences I have - hoping that at some point they will add up to wisdom.

Today I read something that more articulately expressed the idea that keeps swimming around in my head:

I am part of every place I have been: the path to the brook; the New York streets and my "short cut" through the Metropolitan museum. All the places I have ever walked, talked, slept, have changed and formed me.
I am part of all the people I have known. There was a black morning when a friend and I, both walking through separate hells, acknowledged that we would not survive were it not for our friends who, simply by being our friends, harrowed hell for us.
I am still every age I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a search adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be. Because I was once a rebellious student, there is and always will be in me the student crying out for reform.
This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages, the perpetual student, the delayed adolescent, the childish aunt, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide; my past is part of what makes the present and must not be denied or rejected or forgotten.
- Madeline L'Engle - A Circle of Quiet - page 200