Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Impermence II


Part II

Nothing makes me as acutely aware of the changing of all things as experiencing my son age and develop. It’s such a cliché- parents of older children getting misty eyed as they speak about watching their kids grow up. It’s completely true. I reminisce about just a few months ago!

I am grateful for my phone camera. I am soooo grateful for it. They got just good enough and accessible enough to me to have one available as my son was/is growing up. Cameras have been around for a while, yes, but having one right when the action is happening is key to capturing the nuance of my little being exploring the world and himself. I have gotten into the habit of
setting up the phone on a tripod to sit in the corner of the living room and record life transpiring. There is sure to be something, and likely a number of things, that occur while it is recording that has me thanking my foresight- moments of Kavi expressing clarity around a concept we’ve been discussing, getting under the layers of fog to address the real concerns that might arise for him, Kavi making a sophisticated (for him) joke, general silliness that really captures the spirit of the mood and moment.

This is where life is actually happening. This is the day-to-day life experience rather than the travels, the birthdays, or other big occasions. These are the unposed, unscripted moments where the smile is unselfconscious and revealing, where the spirit is expressed in its uninhibited fullness.

As I look back over the 4 years Kavi has been with us, it feels so packed I can barely begin- and yet little moments such as these don’t last very long in my mind. The feeling, in particular loses its solidity, leaving me with a residue that is but a shadow of the moment.

For as much as I try to soak up a moment, yearning to bottle it up and re-immerse myself in when I am an old man, the moments of looking deeply into Kavi’s eyes or delighting in his earnest, high-pitched stream of consciousness rambles, or feeling his small, strong body as we wrestle or cuddle, or having my heart melted yet again by him caressing my forehead and saying ‘I love you’, the camera phone has been my anchor in holding onto at least a tangible memory of the experience that I can possibly reconstruct, at lower resolution, the moment that has already passed.

While impermanence is the meta theme of my art and has brought me a deeper awareness and appreciation of the passing moment within my own life, there are places where I can see my resistance to this facet of life. Kavi is one of these places. Where do you find yourself particularly, perhaps even painfully aware of the impermanence of all things? How do you work with this awareness? How do you deal with what it means?

~Andres

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