The Repository of the Self

"Days in the past cover up little by little those that preceded them and are themselves buried beneath those that follow them. But each past day has remained deposited in us, as in a vast library where, even of the oldest of books, there is a copy which doubtless nobody will ever ask to see."

Books of the Dead (containing ash), California, 2001, JB

"And yet should this day from the past, traversing the translucency of the intervening epochs, rise to the surface and spread itself inside us until it covers us entirely, then for a moment names resume their former meaning, people their former aspect, we ourselves our state of mind at the time, and we feel, with a vague suffering which however is endurable and will not last for long, the problems which have long ago become insoluble and which caused us such anguish at the time."

Avonhead Park Cemetery, 2002, JB

"Our ego is composed of the super imposition of our successive states. But this superimposition is not unalterable like the stratification of a mountain. Incessant upheavals raise to the surface ancient deposits."

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time / The Remembrance of Things Past