Another sunset on the balcony, 4th or 5th now? A hammock, a perfect breeze, bougainvillas a riot surrounding me. It's lovely, but this thought crosses my mind: can I remember the snow in New York? Only with effort. It takes concentration to recall more precisely the sensory information, how it felt on my skin, the lift of the leg necessary to walk through it, the way my mind and everything felt sharp. It's still possible to recall these feelings, concrete and real; in a few more days it won't be possible, the sensations, if requested, would need to be approximated from abstract ideas. The senses always have amnesia, forever wiped clean for the next thing, good or bad or neutral. I wish to be the tabula rasa that can receive, but I also wish to be like the strata of the earth, like the ice inside the Austrian Alps, preserving layer upon fine layer of information that can be retrieved, and an impressive cross-section of knowledge, and time, within.

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