are holding

I am supposed to be writing something else. Long overdue, in fact. Every day, I think about it, worry about it. But worry does little for word count.

I blame it on the flurry of end-of-year events, suddenly in person, suddenly back to rushing around, in the heat.

I blame it on the heat. On traffic.

I blame it on grief, confusion, anger, prolonged anxiety.

I blame it even on unexpected joy.

How can anyone be "productive" these days? These confusing, chaotic, dizzying mid-life days?

My son graduates from middle school next week. Last night, we watched from home while he gave one (of a few) culminating presentations from school. The kids are all masked, so if they speak quickly, and several of them do, it's hard to hear. I find myself looking for the captioning, but then remember I'm not watching netflix. Our son, with years of theatre classes I guess, projects his voice well, speaks slowly. He seems comfortable in his own skin. My heart fills to see it, but still, I worry. What will the next year bring?

My brilliant friend B. sends me an article on Quantum Entanglements. The full title is actually: "Quantum Entanglements and Hauntological Relations of Inheritance: Dis/continuities, SpaceTime Enfoldings, and Justice-to-Come."

I know, right? A mouthful.

I cannot pretend to really understand all of what the author is proposing here, but I find the whole thing strangely comforting, affirming.

What I take away is: Those we have lost are still with us, never really lost. Time is not linear, does not move forward, it is, and we are, all at once and in dynamic relation to each other.

'Spooky action at a distance' is how Albert Einstein famously derided the concept of quantum entanglement — where objects [in such a state] instantaneously influence one another regardless of distance. Now researchers suggest that this spooky action in a way might work even beyond the grave, with its effects felt after the link between objects is broken... memories of entanglements can survive its destruction.

I will admit I don't like the word "quantum" and not a huge fan of "entanglement" either. But I love the suggestion of connection, dynamic relation of here, now, there, then. Across oceans. Through years. Between life and death.

We create each other in our relations to each other, we are always co-creating.

"The point is that the past was never simply there to begin with and the future is not simply what will unfold; the 'past' and the 'future' are iteratively reworked and enfolded through the iterative practices of spacetimemattering..."

Or:

"Memory — the pattern of sedimented enfoldings of iterative intra-activity — is written into the fabric of the world. The world 'holds' the memory of all traces; or rather, the world is its memory...."

I am not doing justice to the argument, but I am taking from it what I most need.

No fixed entities, no fixed time, only the ways in which we hold, are holding, have held, will hold, each other, at once, now and ever.