i once knew the edge of the garden, before the snows came and hid it away. it was composed of a trim shin-high bamboo fence, tied together smartly by wrapped twine at the joints. on the first day that i arrived at the temple, a piece of my naked mind drank in the fine detail of that fence, but only a piece. there were too many new things to admire about the place, too many hopes and fears and promises suspended in the shimmering air...

***

late into the winter, on yet another day of snow, i was told to shovel away the parking lot, or at least claim a piece of it from the thick and smothering mantle of white. and it was during my somewhat callous and uncaring hacks with the snow shovel that i struck something solid, what felt like a thin fibula-like bone in the ice. i was tired, and a job needed to be done, so i struck at it again and again, longing to feel the blank and endless whiteness to yield to me, that i might form a shortcut to completion, and then to a respite from the job at hand. it was only after about the tenth hack that i paused, my breath coming in smoky gasps, and glanced at what i had sought to break.

it was the little bamboo fence.

my shovel had succeeeded in undoing the twine at the joint, and splintered the bamboo beneath besides.
to
***

i reflected on this, with regards to the naked truth of our past experiences, the smothering influence of time, and our inadvertent and damaging "reinterpretations" in our attempts to reclaim those past experiences...

there is always a (fictitious) time in the past when we experience things anew, usually full of fear and trepidation, but also with the wonder and hope of unknown and unknowable things. usually, we seek to bury that uncertain time via repetition, experience, aggressive actions, whatever. and as days pass, we succeed; the new becomes old hat, we trace patterns and pull routines out of the wavering air. and then, as the season begins to freeze to the stillness of monotonous color and deathly cold, we begin to long again for that uncertain time that we covered over in our haste for mastery. if we are (archaeologically) careful, sometimes we may unearth a faint whisper or whiff of that past through our efforts. but more often than not, we are far too clumsy, and in our attempts to get a hold of that naive "once upon a time," we destroy it.

and then, we are left alone and isolated from who we once were.

the fence that once existed at the edge of our garden is now broken...