pass it on

There. Last letter done. Stillness, at last, as the poem says.

My friends, my family, all my loved ones, all rest content in this moment (as content as any of us ever is), if it can be said that they share this moment with me — well, of course it can be said: anything can be said. My question is — what I'm wondering is — what is that relation between us, now, in this moment, the last moment of my life?

In other words, is there a relation, here, now, between me and my dearest ones? None that I can reach. To talk about 'them' at all is just to talk. 'They' exist only in me, at least now, in this moment — for me, this last moment... Were I suddenly to change my mind (and of course I reserve that right), and destroy all these farewell messages I have just composed for them to find here, then, after I am gone; should I decide not to go, and instead run to them, into their arms, vowing never to leave them or even to think about it, ever again — I would be no closer to them than I am now, alone, in the middle of the night, when they are all asleep, as I imagine them, while I keep this last watch, reflecting on the — well, my — end.

I blow out the candle and lean back, gazing at the moon, watch the last wisp of black smoke rise past it into nothingness. The moon is just past full, still high but slipping, down toward the mountain waiting to swallow it, while behind it the dawn sky is just beginning to whiten, and my neighbors' habitations creep out of the dark.

My heart is calm; my eyes are open; I am not afraid. Never again will I be forced into the customary near-panic that comes with contending — no, with having to contend — against whatever it is where no one is safe, nothing stays the way it was, everything changes, ever, nowhere to hide from it, no way to get away from it, no place even to stand, everything slipping, like the moon toward the mountain, while, in the town, the bells ring, the birds sing, the dogs wake everybody who isn't already rushing from here to there to fix this or that or to try to catch whatever got away the moment before.

It's called real life but it isn't real, it's phantoms chasing phantoms all the livelong day — and then in the night, the dreams that come are as real as any workaday disaster after the sun comes up. I love the night, with its fantastic reveries — the moment I turn over and realize I was only dreaming I am so relieved I say, I will dream on! because going back to sleep is waking from the nightmare of the day, you cannot convince me otherwise, you fool, you're dreaming just like everyone else, and in the end will just be dreaming that, just like every thing else.

Please don't try to tell me it is not like this, that it is something else entirely: it is just like this, like very this, every moment — this is where we live, or try to, only to fail in the end —

— but if we're lucky we can hand something off to someone who may come across it later and take it on and make it something else, then pass that on to someone else. I love to imagine that friend, for that is who it will be, when I am gone, who will take what's left of me and give it along with what's left of then to the next one. That's what's real, the only thing: take it, whatever it is, and pass it on.

Time to go.