Cogitation on the Past in the Present

 

cogitation - noun - action of thinking deeply about something; contemplation (Google).

Because holidays like yesterday's Thanksgiving are traditional and repeat themselves year after year because we choose to celebrate them annually, they often propel us backwards into cogitation regarding the past. William Faulkner, of whom I am not a fan but whom I respect as a writer, included the line, "The past is never dead. It's not even past" a reference to how history haunts Southerners in his novel Requiem for a Nun. This may be true even today, but let's face it. It doesn't matter what geographical location you inhabit, if you reside in the present and have a memory, most likely if some stimulus incites you into cogitation, you will fall back into the past. 

This happened to me more than once yesterday for one reason or another. I have a framed 5 X 7 photograph taken on Thanksgiving, 1998 of a scene at the dinner table encompassing myriad emotions displayed in the faces of the relatives captured. Two of the relations are now deceased, one divorced from the family, and three, children, who are now adults. I am the only person pictured who has managed to pass the test of time relatively unscathed. Immediately, though, the photo grabbed my attention and forced me into cogitation, a portion of which I voiced at dinner. The moment in the past became a topic of discussion in the present.  As a conversation starter, I asked, "What do you think Mum is thinking here?" My daughter's and my suppositions enabled us to reach an understanding of the past in the present sans haunting us negatively. 

Unlike some, I don't feel as though I dwell in the past, but it can be a useful tool to aid comprehension in the present. For example, before finding each other again, my man in L.A. (I have mentioned him before in this ongoing blog) and I were once separated by forty years. After we reconnected, we were able to step back to remember the way we were in our twenties and compare it to the way we are now. The differences relate to maturity, of course, but there is a degree of sameness. His mother, to whom he was particularly close, passed away at sixty from cancer. Consequently, he doesn't speak of her too much anymore. However, when I was out visiting him in September, I noticed that the rapport he has with his daughter, who is about the same age he was when I first met him, is the mirror image of that which he once shared with his mother. And to tell you the truth, even though he is a psycho-therapist by profession, I don't think he is cognizant of it because the past has a way of taking control in the present without notice. 

The past is nothing of which you should be afraid. It allows you to lose yourself in cogitation so that you can perhaps learn something positive about the present. Even if your past is ugly for whatever reason, the memory of it exists so that you can become stronger in the now. Anyway, most likely, you have grown enough already to handle a trip back to another time every once in a while. At least, you can use it to stimulate fascinating conversations. :)

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