Time, time, time is on my side?
I’m learning more and more that the flow of time is completely relative. There is no predictability here. On a clear night, I can see 2.5 million years into the past, just by looking up to the stars, my ancient ancestors. Time is not a constant.
“At this latitude I’m spinning 836 miles an hour around the earth’s axis; I often fancy I feel my sweeping fall as a breakneck arc like the dive of dolphins.”
In a single square foot of earth, or a gallon of ocean water, a million interesting things could be happening at any moment. And in the same moment, the 100 billion neurons in my brain are mysteriously bleeping information back and forth to one another. Each one of them is capable of transmitting an electrochemical signal to incredible distances. In the time it takes me to sigh, or uncross my legs, or brush the hair away from my eyes, 10 million other things may have happened within my own body. How many ways can a moment be measured?
Summer is already flirting with Fall, but in San Francisco the fog has only just put in for its annual leave of absence. We expect the hazy days again in November, but by then I might already be somewhere else, and I don’t know what season to expect. Last October was just last week sometimes, and sometimes last October happened all year long.
You say you mark the time by what car you were driving, what music filled your ears. I tend to mark the passage of time by who has come, who has gone, and what we shared with each other while we could. Sometimes I feel that every moment grows heavier than the one before it with history, like snow piling higher and higher in a storm. Sometimes it seems that this moment would just melt away without the cold foundation of the past. But I’m often happier when I imagine that this moment is the only one that exists, has ever existed, and will ever exist.
The past sometimes comes back to me in a series of isolated sensations and images: a surge of warmth, a sweet kiss, a heart-sink, a flower ring on my finger and a swirl of static and color. And then, I don’t want to forget. I used to think I could preserve the past in shoeboxes of mementos. But ticket-stubs and kids-meal toys don’t mean much anymore, and I find that it’s okay to let these little memories weave together into a happy glow, like the sun on my back. And face forward.
And now, whatever “now” may mean, and however it is divided or displayed, whether it is a panel in a storyboard or a tic mark or an isolated entity with no past or future, NOW, I am happy.
“At this latitude I’m spinning 836 miles an hour around the earth’s axis; I often fancy I feel my sweeping fall as a breakneck arc like the dive of dolphins.”
In a single square foot of earth, or a gallon of ocean water, a million interesting things could be happening at any moment. And in the same moment, the 100 billion neurons in my brain are mysteriously bleeping information back and forth to one another. Each one of them is capable of transmitting an electrochemical signal to incredible distances. In the time it takes me to sigh, or uncross my legs, or brush the hair away from my eyes, 10 million other things may have happened within my own body. How many ways can a moment be measured?
Summer is already flirting with Fall, but in San Francisco the fog has only just put in for its annual leave of absence. We expect the hazy days again in November, but by then I might already be somewhere else, and I don’t know what season to expect. Last October was just last week sometimes, and sometimes last October happened all year long.
You say you mark the time by what car you were driving, what music filled your ears. I tend to mark the passage of time by who has come, who has gone, and what we shared with each other while we could. Sometimes I feel that every moment grows heavier than the one before it with history, like snow piling higher and higher in a storm. Sometimes it seems that this moment would just melt away without the cold foundation of the past. But I’m often happier when I imagine that this moment is the only one that exists, has ever existed, and will ever exist.
The past sometimes comes back to me in a series of isolated sensations and images: a surge of warmth, a sweet kiss, a heart-sink, a flower ring on my finger and a swirl of static and color. And then, I don’t want to forget. I used to think I could preserve the past in shoeboxes of mementos. But ticket-stubs and kids-meal toys don’t mean much anymore, and I find that it’s okay to let these little memories weave together into a happy glow, like the sun on my back. And face forward.
And now, whatever “now” may mean, and however it is divided or displayed, whether it is a panel in a storyboard or a tic mark or an isolated entity with no past or future, NOW, I am happy.