Daily Insight

Two views of the past: One, the books I hadn't looked at in a long time, all covered with dust, especially a little square block of a baby book of Joel's– a coat of dust, so sad and dry. And then, Two, within ten minutes, I was looking at publications from the old 1976 Phillip Lopate comic book project at P.S. 75, and Bob Sievert's comic of the comic book project, and my fotonovela "The 4 Winds," with the girls from the bilingual class--black and white photos with little white balloon tags, and suddenly the past was very alive, the past is with us, enriching, today.
It was very striking– in a context of getting together some word/picture stuff for the Newark Museum project where I'll be doing some comix and graphic novels again with kids, in some form– starting later this morning. But the main thing was how within one swath of time (I was tired of course, always a factor as I get older) I went from feeling so sad and overwhelmed by books it has been so long since I've read, most poignantly the ones from Joel's babyhood, to that flash of revivifying memory from the seventies and our work at P.S. 75.
Thus: my Daily Insight: That the future and the past are analogous for the young and the old. I am just on the cusp, future getting short fast. But the more important point is that both of these things live in the imagination– the elder's long past, edited and embellished perhaps, and the young person's wildly powerful hoped-for future. Both playing fields of the imagination. For me, I hope, the past will be rich and enriching to others