One entrance to the past is through memory—either oral or written. And water. In this case salt water. Sea water. And, as the ocean appears to be the same yet is constantly in motion, affected by tidal movements, so too this memory appears stationary yet is shifting always. Repetition drives the event and the memory simultaneously, becoming a haunting, becoming spectral in its nature.

Haunted by “generations of skulls and spirits,” I wants the bones.

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
(Henry Miller)

Yet it can happen, suddenly, unexpectedly, and most frequently in the half-light-of-glimpses, that we catch sight of another visible order which intersects with ours and has nothing to do with it.

□ John Berger, from Opening a Gate

Yet there were these sudden, these unaccountable moments—being overtaken by love—everywhere—on top of buses, in crowded concert halls—sometimes on winter evenings with the skyscrapers floating, flickering above you […] merging with the crowds, examining the faces. This sense of brotherhood. You buried your loneliness in it.

“Even if desire fails to find objects adequate to its aim, its errors can still produce pleasure: desire’s fundamental ruthlessness is a source of creativity that produces new optimism, new narratives of possibility, even erotic experimentality.” (p. 43)