Trap

Hey friends,

Here is a wonderful guest post from one of my favorite writers on Substack,

Caroline

. What makes this even more special is the fact that she is a fellow DC area writer. Very cool!  Enjoy and check out her blog!

Trap

“At the time I didn’t hate her, so why do I scrub out every memory of kindness, or even civility, in favor of the memories of someone being awful ’ The point, I wanted to say was that we shouldn’t still be driving to the Dutch House, and the more we kept up with our hate, the more we were forever doomed to live out our lives in a parked car on VanHoebeek Street. ”

The Dutch House, Anne Patchett

There is a technique involved in looking at the past. The temptation is always there to try to return to some place where we found goodness. Sometimes, we are tempted to return for memories of the bad to enhance the questionable joy of the present (those “good old days”).

I’ve recently reached a point in my life where I’m reverting more and more to the good. I can feel memories of bad slipping away. But not because I’ve forgotten – I have a fantastic memory. All my life I have been able to remember things. Lately, however, I’m not telling the past how I used to. In some cases of unpleasantness, I almost don’t imagine myself as having been a part of it. Materially, I know I was. But spiritually, I think that I was not. Now, in my life, the material has been absorbed by the spiritual in me.

All of us have been caught in traps of the past. In my case, the most important ones have been the traps of lost love and miserable misunderstanding. That I have lived and traveled beyond it is enough for me. But it is a trap that speaks to its victims. “Ah ha, I have your tail. Your foot. And now, I have your neck.” Those killed in the traps cannot recall. Those who live beyond them can scarcely benefit from remembering. Whether we have been trapped or set traps for others, the memories in the vividness bring pain. I can only know “I did it to that rat in the trap,” but the rat does not. It has found its peace, but where is mine? I am left with the job of emptying the traps.

And what do I do with the traps now? Do I sell them to someone else with dirty work to complete? Shall I put them in a glass case so I can gaze at them occasionally and say, “These once held someone that plagued me?” Shall I save them for later, in case the rats return? No. That’s the point. I must get rid of them – their memories.

If I ever reset traps, I know somehow that I shall end up stepping into them myself.

XXXXX

Here is the link to Caroline’s other stories, well worth the read!