Twenty-five years ago in my journal, I wrote this about a conversation with a co-worker:

Someone, oh so gently, implied recently that perhaps I dwell a bit too much in the past, and that is an interesting thought. But to that I have to say this: “Well, yes. I return to the past in my memory and recollections because I am, quite simply, “my past.” The future I have no way of knowing. The present is real enough, but evanescent, constantly in the process of becoming the past.

The here and now is all I am conscious of at this moment. But in the next instant, it is past. I live in this moment. But I live in the past, too. We all do. I live in the past because it is the sum total of all my experiences. It is what has made me into the person I am today. For better or worse…

Fast forward to the present. An old friend who in recent years has gotten to know me better from my writing, wrote this a few weeks ago in a comment about a piece he had read:

As I read your writing, I am amazed at the differences in our life views. You seem to live in the past while I dream of the future and wonder about the forces that are necessary to create a better world. When I read about your contemplating the past, my thinking about the future is so often brought to an abrupt halt. This abruptness isn’t unpleasant. I prefer to think of it as more of a sudden timeout from planning, doing, reviewing, moving forward, and making changes as they seem to be necessary or desirable.  Your writing pushes me to devote some time to thinking about my past experiences, family, friends, things accomplished, and things left undone…

My friend obviously does not dwell in the past, but neither do I. I’m sharing next my reaction to what he said. It’s not so much that I live in the past, which is only metaphorically possible, but rather that the past lives in me today and in every present moment, regardless of whether I am thinking about something that occurred in the recent past or long ago.

And, I should point out, I really don’t “live in the past” so much as dwell on it whenever I am writing or thinking about what to write.  That, and when I’m sitting out on the balcony in the middle of the night, most nights. My past swirls around in galaxies of memories, and unfortunately, in understandably terrible flashbacks.

I do write about the present, but that’s often tied to events or incidents in the past, or to my formative years when I developed my lifelong love of Nature, for example.

I don’t immediately start recollecting the past when I first get up in the afternoon.  I don’t usually think about it when I’m having breakfast and my coffee. I’m too busy warming up to my iPhone addiction and anticipating and attempting to prioritize the gazillion and one things  I want to read and watch on said phone for hours on end that day.  This takes up a sizable chunk of the day, as I think it does for many others in this Internet Age. However, if it’s a nice day, I’m looking forward to getting out and taking pictures.  That is my chief passion and interest in retirement.  It gives me great pleasure day after day, and never gets old. Each day is different and interesting due to this passion of mine.  I am branching out more and doing street photography, documentary, and art photography.  I create and self-publish books.  I love preparing Flickr albums to send to family and friends, even if they are tired of them. I have dozens and dozens of art and documentary photo books, and no spare coffee tables to stack them on.

Like most people, I’m very much a “live for the moment” kind of person, for the most part. What else can we be? However, particularly when I begin writing my personal essays I re-unite with the past, knowing full well the memories are fading, and I will sometimes have to look back to what I wrote 25 years ago to jog my memories.  Or, I open a storage box of keepsakes and reminisce about very particular times, incidents and treasured objects from as far back as grade school.

But truth be told, I live a solitary life, bordering on loneliness, were it not for my writing and photography. I spend most of my time alone in my thoughts, and, since the busy, fulfilling years of work and caregiving are long over in this eighth year of retirement, the past, willingly, is where my thoughts most often drift. The present is so devoid of people and all the events that used to supercharge my energy levels to meet the satisfactions, demands and obligations of life pre-retirement, that I literally dwell in two very distinct worlds.

All of those past events, including my work history and all the friends made at jobs and careers over a lifetime, including finally as a librarian,  are thus crucially important to me, but rest assured, I don’t live to wallow around in them.

Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea
Lonely rivers sigh
Wait for me, wait for me
I’ll be coming home
Wait for me…

Unchained Melody,
written by Alex North (music) and Hy Zaret (lyrics) in 1955