Accurately describing wounds, monsters, or ordeals is not essential when looking through the “satchel” we all possess. It must contain the experience of the death of family members, the loss of close friends, betrayal, burning from the wrath of greed, broken promises, a ruling of a diagnosis, mistakes—lots of them—and again, an account of deception. You could easily add many more episodes of heartache you endured. The scars from these affairs may wilt but never disappear completely, though I once believed time heals. It does not. It expands the canvas of our lives so that we can repaint it with different brush strokes of actions and colors of experiences. But I wrestled savagely with my mind and pinned it down to bury aches and demons six feet under the ground, then covered it with the heaviest plutonium-grade dirt called “denial!” Only to feel an unconquerable urge to escape the make-do resolution. I have yet to look back or return. The delusion ultimately chased me out until I settled in a new place twenty thousand miles away from the area of my anguishes. I was on the run, hiding from everything I knew as a home, without realizing I could run only for a while before my body would run out of eagerness.
Writer David Whyte says that our past is never in the past. It is always here, in our conversations. Our narrative doesn’t follow us; we imbue it into our history to become a new portrayal! For a while, though, denial relieved me, akin to the effect of over-the-counter painkillers for a complicated and unmerciful disease. The pain returns; it always does with vengeance. First, I would smell its presence like a vapor from a distance. Then I would see it pursuing me like a shadow during the day and hear the whispers between the countless dozing on and off sleep at night.
For the speakers of Aymara in Peru, looking ahead means looking at the past. The word for future in Aymara is “qhipuru,” meaning “behind time.” The four-dimensional spindle is reversed in their conversations. Like the rest, they believe the past is already known; we lived it. We can see it just like anything else that appears in our field of vision. We should look at the past rather than pretend to know the future or visualize it appropriately. Tomorrows are always in our imaginations and not a silhouette of reality, while accounts of our history are always perceptible but impossible to hide. The wisdom of the Aymara language nudged me to attend to each episode of grief, almost like a physical wound requiring regular nursing, cleaning, and healing agents. I made a ritual of greeting them instead, though reluctantly! The memory luggage was more than just a companion. It was an extension of my journey. This learning is agonizing, but I am compelled to avoid it. A tireless battle that will rage as long as the heart beats.