Glacial Errata, No. 71

One

Just one thing this week. This copper wire.

Two

I’ve been watching this wire for the past five years, as this tree slowly grows around it. This tree is on my street, about a block away from my apartment, and I walk past it most days. And I always look at this wire when I pass. As these two limbs have grown and converged around it, there is less and less of the wire visible every year. At some point, perhaps, the tree will consume it entirely, and you won’t be able to see it at all. It will still be there, inside the tree, but no one will know it’s there except for those who remember it from before. Eventually, we’ll all have moved away or have died. The strange scar in the tree will persist, and so the tree itself will carry a memory of the wire in its own way—the only trace left. The wire will still be there, of course, inside.

Three

So, actually, two things this week: the wire, and also the tree.

Four

Really, three things: the wire, the tree, and what the wire used to hold.

You can read about that third thing here.

Five

Nothing these days is ever about just one thing. Not anymore. One thing is always two things, is always three. Everything is connected, everything is embedded, everything bears traces and scars of everything else. The things that get left behind get carried forward by the things that survive. Everything is always more than itself.

Remember that.