There are days when time feels almost tangible.
When the past gathers itself like dust motes in the slant of late afternoon sunlight, swirling, almost within reach — and yet, never quite touching the skin.
I find myself thinking of old age more often these days.
Not with fear, nor with bitterness. But with a quiet kind of awe, the way one regards an ancient river that has worn down mountains, patiently, relentlessly, until all that remains are softened stones and hollow echoes.
Old age, I am learning, is less about surviving years, and more about surviving memory.
It is the slow realization that we are, all of us, vessels with tiny cracks, unable to keep the precious water of our lives from seeping away.
It is waking up one morning and finding that the colors of certain days have faded, that names we once spoke like sacred mantras now hesitate on the tip of the tongue, trembling, uncertain.
It feels, sometimes, like trying to hold sand in a frail, trembling hand.
You press your fingers tightly together, willing the grains to stay. You whisper promises to the universe, bargains with the gods of memory. Let me keep this face. Let me remember this laugh. Let me hold onto the scent of rain on a stone path, or the feel of warm bread in the hands of my mother.
But the sand slips through anyway.
Because that is the nature of sand.
Because that is the nature of life.
No matter the strength of your grip, no matter the urgency of your longing, it escapes you — gently, steadily, unstoppably.
And in the end, you are left staring at your own empty hand, wondering if you ever held anything at all, or if it was all just an exquisite illusion of possession.
Yet, not all is lost.
Some grains stay, stubbornly caught in the creases and lines — in the small, unpolished places where time, for whatever mysterious reason, cannot quite reach.
A lullaby your mother sang, off-key, under a pale yellow moon.
The flicker of your child’s eyes the first time they called you by name.
The worn leather chair where your father read the newspaper every Sunday.
The shy smile of someone who loved you once, and perhaps still does, somewhere beyond the veils of this world.
These are not the grand monuments we try so hard to build in our minds.
They are not the detailed recollections we pride ourselves on, the precise dates and events neatly recorded in old diaries.
No, these are softer things.
Impressions. Whispers. Feelings.
They are what remain when everything else has surrendered to the tides.
The heart keeps them, even when the mind grows dim.
The soul, I think, tattoos them onto itself in invisible ink, where no erosion can touch them.
And perhaps that is enough.
Perhaps we were never meant to hold it all.
Perhaps we were meant to let the sands fall, to let memory scatter itself back into the world — enriching the soil, feeding the rivers, carried by the wind into someone else’s dreams.
There is a strange, sorrowful beauty in knowing we cannot possess our lives fully, even as we live them.
There is humility in recognizing that memory is a borrowed thing — something we cradle for a while, then set free when the time comes.
So today, I sit quietly with my handful of sand, letting it slip through my fingers without rage, without regret.
Grateful for the few shining grains that stay behind.
Grateful for having had them at all.