einmal ist keinmal
I cheated on my plan. I took Pavel's copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being from the shelf, out of order, because it was his favourite and because I miss his handwriting. He underlined in pencil, very lightly, as if he didn't want to disturb the book.
On the first pages he underlined the part about eternal return: Nietzsche's idea that everything we live might come back again and again, forever. And the German saying Kundera uses, einmal ist keinmal. Once is nothing. What happens only once might as well not have happened.
This Sunday afternoon I walked by the dam. Past the ferry stop the path splits: left, up through the trees, where Pavel and I always went, or straight on along the water. I took the water. I couldn't do the trees yet.
If this year came back again and again, forever, would I want it? I don't know. Ask me in December.