The Pain Of Circumstance

My life for the past several days has been set to the soundtrack of the film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which was composed and performed by the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai. It is minimalist and entirely instrumental, with a lot of building on and repetition of theme. It is also the first album in a long time that has completely consumed me. I seriously mean it when I say that I have been listening to it multiple times in a row - all last night while I was sleeping, all of my return journey from the Philly area this evening, etc.

That film was the first that Matt Doll showed to us in Italy. As I was driving just now, I was trying to pull together some thoughts that would be conclusive for this, the last post of this blog. Once again, though, I realize that a thought I put into my travel writing piece is true - even though I want there to be a neat finish, a length of string measured and cut by Lachesis and Atropos, it is not like that. The segmentation of my life is artificial, only valuable for reference; this search, la ricerca, continues on, continues to change and to change me. There are great gains and small gains, and some are lasting. The same with losses. The impact of them changes with time and with place, but they build together into a person all the same. What gives any person the right, ever, to cast off his label of "stranger"? Implicit in that is the question "When are we not home?"

This is also the joy of circumstance.