2004-07-11
(no subject)
I have a sense of history as an ocean, great waves upon it sweeping us along, time as ripples over and under and through and about everything and everyone. History connects each of us now to everyone who was before and it will connect us all to those who are to follow. It is great and majestic and deep and impossible and I fumble about trying to see into its depths.
Imagine just the shaping of our nation, these past few hundred years - the events and the people and the cities and towns springing up and aging and growing great. Narrow this down further to New York and see it turn from Native American hunter-gatherers to a countryside Dutch colony full of farms to a trading port to an English-owned city of frame houses to the brick and mortar sprawl to Gotham of stainless steel and shining glass, roads and buildings and bridges snaking up across Manhattan and out over the boroughs and all around, the city growing with the people and the people growing with the city, and all of these changes happening so fast and so around us that we can't see them as they happen and can barely comprehend them looking back.
History awes me completely and fascinates me wholly and I would drown in it.
Imagine just the shaping of our nation, these past few hundred years - the events and the people and the cities and towns springing up and aging and growing great. Narrow this down further to New York and see it turn from Native American hunter-gatherers to a countryside Dutch colony full of farms to a trading port to an English-owned city of frame houses to the brick and mortar sprawl to Gotham of stainless steel and shining glass, roads and buildings and bridges snaking up across Manhattan and out over the boroughs and all around, the city growing with the people and the people growing with the city, and all of these changes happening so fast and so around us that we can't see them as they happen and can barely comprehend them looking back.
History awes me completely and fascinates me wholly and I would drown in it.