On the side.

March 20, Saint-Ismier.

A recent comment threw me into introspection, into the way I write and what I write and why.
Ellyn Rose said what I wrote reminded her of the Portuguese word "saudade," a word I love. It is a word that evades translation in either of the languages of my awaken life; it means nostalgia, regretful love and sadness intertwined but it is also beyond all these notions, as elusive as the feeling it represents.
Reading back it is obvious that my writing has increasingly been infused with saudade, the obsessive return to nostalgia even as the moment is being lived, the fear of forgetfulness (another word falling short, "l'oubli" in French so much more beautiful, even the sound of it,) pervading everything, life passing by to be recorded against oblivion and in the process transformed into a pervading museum of memories to come. It has to do with the fear of death, of course, this obsession of time passing, of recording, remembering life in its most mundane expressions above all, its minute unfolding, and in its scathing ebb.