eternity in life stories

Am I witnessing eternity as I visit the past?
As I write about my life story.
As I reminisce about my childhood with my Nanang, my Lola Sefa,
My mother, my father.
My aunts and uncles.
My days playing with my Ate, Anton, Benjie, Chot, and Menchie.
Countless cousins, playmates.
Friends in high school, college, grad school.
Memorable neighbors, friends, colleagues.
Strangers along the way.

Is that why I am both exhausted and exhilarated as I hit the keys as I write.
What I  knock off from my memory bank.
Pieces and fragments. Emotions, happy, sad.

Am I poking at an incomprehensible huge matrix.  Of interwoven lives and events.
Is this after all eternity? When the past is brought in the now.
And the future being painted with the brushes of awe inspiring recall.



Note:  This musing was inspired by the interview of the Poet Laureate of 2019, Joy Harjo,  in Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul Sunday Show.   Below are some of the notes I made of her profound thoughts.

Nobody dies
Ancestors in every poem, story
One connected matrix

In the eye of children,  nature
We are always in conversation with history