You Can't Go Home Again

One tests the water, sticks a toe in here and there, to see, in this case, how cold it is. And to be honest, I'm finding it fairly cold. 

I'm talking about the possibility of returning to America--for a visit, that is, and to see what may happen from that point. But (again, to be honest), even a visit seems more and more a dead end, a waste of time and money. 

There are people I would like to see ... but I think there are not many who would like to see me, or who really care one way or another. I guess I am thinking of things that have passed away. They have not passed in my mind, in my memory, but these things that I remember are just that: memories. They are more alive in my mind than in the real world. 

You can't repeat the past, Nick Carraway famously said to Gatsby in Fitzgerald's novel. 

"Can't repeat the past?" Gatsby answered. "Of course you can!"

But Carraway was right. You can't. You cannot repeat it, you cannot revive it, you cannot repair it or reconstitute it. Because it doesn't exist. 

You can't go home again.