Rituals
By nature, humans are migratory creatures, an animal that comes and leaves as the tides change. And what is life but constant movement? The sound of feet brushing against dirt, against grass, against concrete. A quickening of the heart saying faster, faster, to the blood that rushes through the limbs. A softly uttered hello and hands moving to welcome a closing of distance. Welcoming the end of 7 days, an immeasurable void between one Friday and the next.
Long ago people left behind artifacts. Trinkets, images, knives, graves, and scraps. A breadcrumb trail of people travelling through time saying “we are here” to infinite space. And perhaps that is all that life is, a series of changes and leaving behind things. The leftovers from our food, our houses long after we’ve gone, cigarette butts in empty parking lots. Conversations speaking of nothing and everything, exchanged greetings, and midnight texts, the stories we impart to each other. The little trinkets left behind from words, a little breadcrumb trail of two people who travelled the length of a finger and a lightyear in an instant.
And what is history but a pilgrimage? A story told of transient people leading transient lives, and that’s what gets left behind. Stories and nothing more. Stories about how we eat, how we drink, how we sleep, how we hate, and how we love. Of migrations, of visits and departures. The enigmatic dances and songs we do to celebrate and pay homage to the intimacies of time.
What is life but constant movement?
Our feet shuffling towards each other, meeting. A list of things that quicken the heart with only your name scrawled over and over and over. And in a lightyear when things are only dust, the stories of moving will be all that remains.
