All Part Of Time

Usually, when something happens in your life, you start to relate everything to it. My grandfather passed away last Sunday, so that's pretty much all I think about. It's so much information to process in so little time. I feel hypnotized. His death hasn't quite hit me yet, but I still feel his absence. As I'm thinking all of this, I'm reading Leaves of Grass. I know I have to focus. This poetry is so rich in content, it calls for my full attention. I stumble across a line: "What I know I like" (1), and then I realize that's what's been making me feel so empty.

Usually, the unknown is terrifying. When there's something in your life that has been there for a long time, regardless if it's good or bad, you will learn to like it.

A clear example of this is Clara Rojas. As she was being freed, she was hugging her abductors. Why would she hug the people who kidnapped her? It's now that I understand they became a big part of her life. They were what she knew and what she learned to like.

The same thing happens with my grandfather. I've lived with him for almost all my life and not having him around the house is something new to me. Something I obviously don't like.

Going back to Leaves of Grass, I really like how Whitman plays with time. First, he gives us the feeling that he is all knowing. He does so by using words like "shall" and "will be". "You shall possess the good of the earth and sun- (there are millions of suns left)" (2). Then, he mixes the past, present and future: "I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and end; But I do not talk of the beginning or end" (3). When he says "beginning" he's referring to the past, as he talks about the "end", he's referring to the future and he himself is a clear example of the present. Pretty interesting. It gives the impression that the past, present and future are all the same. And coming to think of it, they are the same. Just as we in a sense, are the same too. The past, the present, the future, the ones who died, the ones who are still with us, they, we, are all part of time.