Another Footprint

The other day, my husband was talking to me about his experience viewing footage of a talk he'd given.  He said it was like watching someone else - an  image for which he was responsible, but still only a reflection of his thought and intention in the moment.

His recorded self seemed to me like a foot print in the snow -  destined to be gone before the season is over.  And I realized that how we come across is something we are creating and recreating moment to moment rather than who we actually are.

When I was a kid, my family had a wooden trunk filled with pictures.  Some were in albums but most were loose, stored in small, coverless boxes.  I used to go through those boxes, repeatedly studying each photo, eagerly searching, though I didn't know for what.

Now I think I was searching for myself in all of that - for some clue about the best of who I could be.  But a picture is a footprint.  There is an abiding creative presence and there are all the footprints or products left by that presence.  No marker of where anyone's been (ourselves included) can define us- for the true self, the best of who we are, is that which has already moved on to make its next mark.