shadow

Of Shadows And Ghosts

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 3 Comments

ghost of mahinThis is not a sad article. This is about connections and weights, about people as we see them and people as they were.

It’s been almost 13 years since my father passed away. It’s been about 5 months since my mother passed away. There are many others that are significant – the number never goes down. Every time, every single person is significant to us for reasons that are sometimes easily explained despite how complicated the relationship is. To say that I have ever had a simple relationship is an understatement. Everything is complex, nuanced, and open for discussion.

Yet when a person hits that full stop of life, some things simplify as we get to know them beyond the frames we put them in. Other perspectives weigh in. The people typically grow in death as we learn more about them from other people, good and bad, right and wrong. An example: My father, who was proud of me joining the Navy, was once forbidden to join the Navy by his father. My mother left a trail of artists who were affected by her passing, and that was truly her audience for her writings – complex, passionate, and a trail of breadcrumbs through a life of difficult exploration in being human.

But we only know people in certain ways, as we know them and are allowed to know them – as they permit us, as we permit ourselves. Framing them, judging only by what is available, we form sometimes strong opinions about things much more nuanced, only shadows of who they were.

And the ghosts, in the end, tell us more.

This extends into our digital worlds as well.

Without Shadow.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) in Silhouette.Almost every morning, I wake before my shadow and spend 2 hours without it.

I pondered this on this morning, awaking and, placing my foot on the ground, not required to be anywhere yet wishing to get to the day’s activities. There are fewer people at this hour – enough to notice, to watch, as they trudge with their own meaning, slaves to what they must do to get what they must have, slaves to what they must do to get what they don’t need. Some move with purpose belied by their step, target blindness robbing them of the world around as they focus on the world ahead. Few take their time, one stops to dissuade the stray dogs at his heels. A world awakens, the first bits of dawn bend through the atmosphere, something so many do not understand from secondary school physics – it mutes the darkness casually, awaking the birds from their slumber – the owls go silent, the passerines awaken with vigor.

The cars start passing more frequently. There is a rhythm that reaches a crescendo soon, an expanse of noise that mutes the world as it was, that mutes us as we were.

The shadow shows up, the expectations, the definition of what we are by what we aren’t – to mock us throughout the day.

Those that do not wake without their shadows cannot see this, blinded by light, staring into the sun instead of what it reflects on. On what we reflect on.