Towns

I often find a place to sit and listen to the conversations around me in libraries in towns I visit. Once, in Aspen, I heard a tutor questioning a student about the influence of Machiavelli's background and audience on "The Prince". And another time in a queer part of Arizona, I heard an animated discussion about the merits or rather, demerits of Stranger in a Strange Land. For a few moments, I try to see their position and even insert myself into their life: imagining myself as a tutor, interlocutor, and student among others. Yet however long or deeply I imagine the moment, the conversation ends briefly and I am left only with a feeling of emptiness in my heart.

It is sorrowful that we only receive one life or otherwise only remember one for every life. We only get to experience and remember one variety of life and all others can only be experienced second hand.