the face that stares back at you from the mirror later in life is so different than when you're young. there's a winnowing away and a shutting down. a sense of something having been taken from you and you don't know exactly what it is, just that it isn't there anymore. what opens up to you instead is experience, is cunning, is foreknowledge. nothing you sought.

jeff vandermeer    hummingbird salamander 

i wrote this over to see what i think and see how it corresponds to my experience. it is different. i distinctly recall feeling sad looking in the mirror, but not now. or not often. there is a winnowing, but more opening. there's a winnowing of shutting down. i do feel that something is taken away by the culture or society or whatever we live in. it's extractive and destructive. but inside we still have the kid who's smarter than society. and the kid is always ready to come out and play. experience is cherished, even the bad stuff. a little cunning i guess, but in the animal sense, not the exploitive. foreknowledge based on eternal recurrence but always with surprises. nothing you sought but who knows what you were seeking, or what was seeking you, you know?