Writing Prompt: It's all a blur
There are few things that send me into weeping and anxiety than the
passage of time. I console myself by remembering that not all societies
experience time the same way. Perhaps this means that life and death are
also experienced differently. I'm not talking about beliefs now, not
about religion, or dogma, or the cannon. I'm not talking about the way
one was raised up to think of god a certain way, or the chants one might
practice both in public and private. I'm not even talking about karma,
the sacred lotus, or be here now. Well, maybe be here now, but not the
rest.
In my culture, time is a moving train on a one-way track. It's a
trajectory from take off until landing in the unknown beyond. Time is a
series of long moments that all come to an end far earlier than when one
is ready. Time is marked by birthdays, holidays, school years past, the
hungry twenties, the making a family 30s, the watching the kids grow
40s. Time is the anticipation of what is to come. It's the beautiful
present unopened under the tree. It's looking at your baby in the
hospital hooked into machines that measure his heart beat, pump food
into his belly, provide him morphine for the pain of the chest tube and
consoling oneself with the knowledge that it will all be over soon, just
a blur.
And sure enough, that's exactly what happens. His tubes come out,
his eating improves, his pain subsides. He grows, he learns to move his
feet, wiggle his toes, turn himself over. He loves turning over so much
that he rolls and rolls, from one end of the small house to the other.
We laugh and delight in this baby torpedo who gets places in a most
unconventional way. And then he starts crawling. At the UC center where
they test the cognitive development of babies, the doctor says he has
never seen a baby crawl so fast. It's true, we race him against another
baby crawler in the hallways and mirthfully enjoy the sprint. But even
so, it's clear, this baby won't remain a crawler for long. He's on his
way to cruising, holding onto the edge of the coffee table where his
mother had her first and second birthday cakes, grasping the dog, the
edge of the TV stand, the couch. And from cruising he will go to
walking.
It's so clear looking at this toddler who was once a baby that time
will pass too quickly. You can see your future and his right there,
until you pull yourself back, "be here now" you say in your head. But
being here now doesn't stop the march forward. And now, because time is
of the essence, you reflect on the fact that he will be going to 6th
grade in just a few months. Those months seem like long stretches now,
except you've lived long enough to know that each anticipated gift will
be opened, the wrapping crumpled up, the ribbons put first on your head
like accessories, then thrown in the garbage. And then there will be no
more presents, nothing more to unwrap. Vacation will be over, summer
will be gone, and he will be growing up some more.
I wonder what it is like to experience time as circular. Does it
make the hastening of death less absolute? Does it keep aging at bay?
Be here now. As if.
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