The past is not as gone as it looks.
Field Notes
A pollinator visits this flower and flies away.
The encounter lasts only moments.
But afterward, the flower continues differently.
It adjusts what it offers. It changes its behavior. The visitor is gone, yet the visit remains.
We tend to imagine that events end when they are over.
Often they are only beginning.
A conversation can linger for years.
A kindness can outlive the person who offered it.
A loss can quietly shape decades.
The world is filled with things that are no longer happening and are still having an effect.
Perhaps that is why the past never feels completely distant.
Not because it is still here.
But because some part of it still is.