In his journal, Thomas Merton played a game where he would think back to where he was a year ago, write out what he could remember, then keep going back, year by year, details becoming embarrassingly sparse, until his memory failed him or it got too painful.
It is only by exercising memory, like a kind of muscle, by blowing off the dust that settles and covers everything, that we keep the road of our lives open into the past.
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