In Temendia I seem to move through a world composed of remnants. Not in the way I thought during my first visits. Past and ‘present’ are mingled. But the immediate past, what occurred 20 or 10 minutes ago is just as likely to be jumbled as things happening 10 or 20 years ago. More likely, in my experience. What is impaired is my ability to construct a narrative that plausibly connects present experience with the past.
Here’s the thing: I stumbled into Temendia, by taking one day at a time, always supposing that this was temporary, short-term, just another in a long series of choices and half-choices that could be reversed at any time. Midway, or more, along that path I woke in a tunnel at the end of which was only night, made darker by the bright light of my fantasies. But Temendia only makes the darkness visible — the light at the end of the tunnel, if light there is to be, is only the light I bring.
Temendia absorbs me. No there. No here. No then. And, as a result, no real sense of now. I arrive, take care of things as best I can, try to retrieve and sustain for a few moments an echo of the past, and then leave. But I do not leave, for there is no there to leave. Leaving implies the possibility of return, but here is only recurrence without return. I have left the path without wandering from it. I continue on it, but without a destination. I can no longer imagine the course of this journey. Only now do I realize I am missing a shoe.