![]() ![]() It is a kind of ocean, always running backward toward low tide, receding, draining away from me, and I stand stuck on the edge of its shore, knowing that it contains everything I have ever known - my father and mother, the old maple tree, a black dog and an orange cat, my grandmother’s terrifying clock - but all of that is under the surface now, suspended in the water that rushes away from me, and I will never be able to enter it, will never recover what has sunk, and it causes me real pain. The past becomes perky and alive and attentive, always on your heels, even as you trek perpetually forward.Īs a lifelong mope, I tend to imagine the past very differently - as fundamentally huge and sad. In just five quick words, this sentence converts the entire history of everything - the whole past - from its usual state of formless abstraction (an energy field, a tidal wave, a void) into something fabulously active and small: a kid on a toboggan, scraping and sliding behind you, bumping over little hills, cheeks red from the cold, pompom bouncing yarnily on top of a winter hat. What an excellent verb: “sleds.” What a weirdly specific way to visualize time. Schutt is the author of two previous collections and three novels, including the National Book Award finalist “Florida.” From Christine Schutt’s “Pure Hollywood: And Other Stories” (Grove Press, 2018, ). ![]()
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