There is a particular feeling that can strike abruptly upon returning to a place long after the last visit, or upon rediscovering
a possession tucked away for years: a sort of overwhelming realization that things are not (were never?) quite as they once seemed. The magnificent theater of your memories is just a small auditorium with terrible acoustics; the endlessly long table you remember is perfectly normal; the fabrics which had seemed so luxurious are, in fact, just like any other clothes.
Mistrust and doubt (this can’t be it!) give way to understanding: things imposing, things wonderful, things strange become comfortable and regular, aging their way into some newfound authenticity. Nevertheless, objects and memories, collected and gathered for one reason, are kept for another.
Scrawled in an old notebook of Bill Walton’s is this phrase, the hill is getting lower, without any further elaboration. Perhaps the slope eases temporarily, perhaps climbing is simply becoming less taxing with time, or maybe the land really has just eroded, bringing the summit ever closer. But, as Walton noted in a small addendum on the next line, there’s also the possibility (the concession?) that, for all you know, that may not be the case: or so it seems.
