The Weight of the Passing

I keep a small, smooth river stone on my desk, worn down by years of being turned over in my palm. It is a heavy, silent thing, smoothed by currents I will never see and waters that have long since moved on to the sea. There is a strange comfort in holding something that has been shaped by the relentless push of a river. We spend our lives trying to stand firm, to plant our feet in the silt and claim a patch of earth as our own, yet everything around us is in a constant state of departure. We are all just passing through, leaving behind the faint impressions of our movement like ripples on a pond that close up the moment we are gone. We hold onto the solid, the heavy, and the permanent, forgetting that the most profound parts of our journey are the ones that slip through our fingers like water. What is left of us when the current finally pulls us away?

Nirupam Roy has captured this feeling of transition in the beautiful image titled Returning From Kumbha. It reminds me that even in the largest crowds, we are each moving toward our own quiet horizon. Does this image make you feel like you are joining the flow, or watching it from the shore?