Heraclitus of Ephesus said, "You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on.”
In modern times we have modified Heraclitus with “That’s water under the bridge.”
I have been always fascinated by time and its consequence in my life.
From my place on my bed, with my two cats, I am able to look at portraits of my family that I took long ago or at least 8 years ago. I see them as memories that become graphic if I can touch copies or simply look at the framed images.
In this last year I have been having no relief in living alone with my cats (they do help, but) and no Rosemary. I wonder what images Heraclitus might have seen in his mind and what others from early Greek painting and sculpture. Was he limited in his memory?
With my scanner I have been finding and putting into my blog early photographs I took of Rosemary. I look at them with some degree of pleasure but with a lot of grief. Definitely time is linear in one direction and I cannot go back to what or how it was.
But in the middle of the night I had this vision of a somewhat exception to time’s linearity.
I often do not finish my mug of tea and hours after I reheat it in the microwave. Is the re-warmed tea a present version of the past?