But we can find the way back, any time we like

From D.W.: This is, I'm pretty sure, the very first picture ever taken of Rachel and me. It was taken by our dear friend, Jackie Eich, on May 19, 2012, at a roller derby in Houston about a month into our dating relationship. A black and white print of this photo hangs on the wall in my living room in front of the chair I always sit in, so it's the picture I look at more than any other. It's not my favorite photo of us (I'll talk about that one at some point), but it is the one that makes me the happiest. And when I say "happiest," I don't mean "the highest quantity of happiness." I mean the greatest ratio of happiness to any other tempering emotion like sadness, or regret, or anger. None of the photos of Rachel that I have are accompanied by a single emotion anymore. They're all an amateur bartender's cocktail of a sugars and bitters. But this one comes the closest.

I don't know why, exactly, this one takes the trophy. I suppose it has something to do with time, and change, and the naive hope of two crazy kids who have no idea what they're in for. When I look at it I see the two of us, still uneasy about each other and this new thing that's happening between us. No idea where it's headed, but ready for the ride. A vague notion that something is changing, and we're not sure what, but it's exciting and unlike anything that's ever happened before in the whole world, ever. It's unsettling, a bit anxiety ridden, of course, but we joined hands, faced the winds of change and the sands of time together, and came out the other side new, and different, and oh-so-much-better.

We're three days into the new year, and I've been thinking a lot about time and change. Rachel kept those themes central in her mind. She went through so much change in her early adulthood. I mean, seriously, reading through her writings from the mid-to-late 2000's is like an epic poem of stormy seas. But, as always, she kept hope and love at the center. Here are a couple of pieces that really stood out to me. The first is a poem she wrote in 2005 (or lyrics, maybe?). The second is from a couple of months into our relationship.

Long Valley Lane. October 26th. 2005

what i really meant to say was...

in the meantime
in between time
there's a fine line between
where you are and where you want to be

on the flip-side
in the shadow
there's a memory of
who you were and who you want to be

on the other hand
in the spotlight
there's a stage lit up
for who you are to all the rest of the world

in the middle, in the twilight, in the gloaming
that's where you get it right.
in the learning, in the burning, in the wrestling
with the angel with all your might.
in the leaving, in the weaving, in the weeping
of the tears you were once too brave to cry
in the trying, in the dying, in the running
of the great life race you just know you can win
you just might find the courage to begin, again.

across the fine lines on your face
across the stage lights in your eyes
across the oceans of the tears that you've cried
across the barrens of your mind
across the wastelands of your heart
across the plenty and the passions and the fears that you hold dear
there's still the change to make it somehow right.

Long Valley Lane. June 18th. 2012

babylonian time zones

time (tīm)
n.
1.
a. a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
b. an interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration: a long time since the last war; passed the time reading.
c. a number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval: ran the course in a time just under four minutes.
d. a similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes: checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 AM.
e. a system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned: solar time.
--american heritage dictionary

i believe in intuition and inspiration. … at times i feel certain i am right while not knowing the reason. when the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, i was not in the least surprised. in fact i would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. imagination is more important than knowledge. for knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. it is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
—albert einstein

“one’s personal legend is what you have always wanted to accomplish. everyone, when they are young, knows what their personal legend is. at that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. they are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. but, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their personal legend…
whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, 
it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. it’s your mission on earth.  
--paulo coehlo, the alchemist

mostly, time passes in a flash and a blur.  sometimes, i can catch snips of what's happening at the edges,  if i look out the corner of my eye, but things are usually so fast and furious, i keep my head pointed straight ahead and capitulate to the tunnel vision that comes to take over, and help me not feel like i'm about to throw up everything i've eaten in the last seventeen years.  it's hard for me to remember that time is a convention we've invented, in our wisdom and our blindness, to help us not feel so...small.

sometimes, when i watch my favorite movie, and see that fresco of lions painted 30k years ago (a full 20k years before our voices had developed enough to speak words you and i would hear as intelligible), i almost can't breathe.  we leave such small and stunning things behind us, to mark our time.  some of what we leave behind will never be found or uncovered.  other pieces, moments, poems, paintings, remnants of bone, hand prints, etc...they end up staining the walls of where ever we live and move and have our being, and the people who come after us will come to know that while time has passed, it is somehow mysteriously still in motion, with everything still happening, still rushing and flowing and shaping us with it's unseen and ferociously tender hands.  i can look at those pictures on that cave wall and believe in a forever that i was never able to see, before.

i remember the first time i left the central time zone.  we were on a family trip, to new mexico.  i was six, and my brother was two.  ...white sundress with tie straps and red piping and smocked down the front, and little white sandals, and sitting as still as i possibly could while the man with the box full of colors drew a picture of me for my momma to hang on the wall... eating the hottest enchilada of my entire life, and my poppy smiling the whole time, while my eyes watered and i giggled the whole way through dinner... kachina dolls and getting lost in a giant truck stop at carl's corner.  there was something mystical about the idea that this trip to an enchanted land (tip of the hat to you, new mexico...) was a WHOLE hour different from the life i lived in my little yellow house in btex.  i was very insistent that EVERYONE adjust their watches, when i read the road sign that proclaimed, "NOW ENTERING MOUNTAIN TIME".  i was fascinated by the idea that just by moving yourself around on the face of the planet, you had to change your clock to keep up with where you were.  at least, that's how i believed time worked, when i was six.  frankly, i still kind of believe it works that way.

in babylon, it's easy to believe that some time passes more quickly than others.  it's so easy to believe-- i make up shit that isn't true, just to pass the time.  i tell myself that mondays are forever long, and that the week between christmas and new year is the fastest week of the year.  i agonize over time away from things i need to do, accomplish, finish, start, sew up, love, grow, weed, burn, bandage, rock, and carry.  i forget, in my haste to cross things off my list that every minute is 60 seconds long, every day is 24 hours in length.  i get the same time, every day.

those hours seem to be flying by when i am actively engaged, even if it's active engagement with something i'm not crazy about...sometimes, that same exact amount of time drags when i have to do maddening tasks  or have tedious conversations or fold laundry or be sick or spend time with people i don't like in places i'd rather not be.  but i don't always get a vote on where/how/with whom i spend my time.  i do get a vote on how i choose to view it, on whether or not i allow it to spin by me in a blur or take it by the reins and slow it the eff down.  the real trick is to keep this at the front of my mind: "make every minute count".  as long as i remember that, remember that the shot clock and the game clock are one in the same, i do fine.  and that clock isn't one that lives on the wall, or one that's regulated by some cesium core in a basement in brussels.  that clock belongs to G-d and has numbers on it that i can't read.  i have no idea how much time has been counted by that clock, nor how much is left in the tank.  truth be told, i could care less.  all i can do is hold the time i have gently and make every single second count.  and sometimes, annoying as it is, i have to say that out loud to myself, and sometimes to other people.  i can't lose track of that.  can't. won't. must not.  but i have to hold it like an egg...one of those faberge jobs that goes for like $10k at an auction.

the tighter i held on to my idea of time, timing, and what it all meant, the smaller my idea of G-d and love was.  letting go of that clock, my clock, the shot clock i was convinced i would never beat, never best, never fully comprehend was harder than anything i've ever had to do, ever.  harder than burying people i loved, because time is tied up in that bit, too.  i stopped wearing a watch when i was twenty-five, as part of a lenten discipline, but also because i knew i was looking at my watch way more than i was looking at the faces around me, more than i was looking out the window of my office, more than i was looking at anything else, to tell the truth.  i didn't like that.  i didn't pick up another one until i had to wear one at camp.  i was so glad to take it off at the end of the summer, to see that inch of untanned wrist glow in the dark, to be unshackled from that band of time that made me hurry and rush from one thing to the other, when what i really wanted  to do was be still and sit and process.

being in babylon is all about time, the illusion and the reality of the concept of time.  it is totally analogous to "doing time" in a strange and somehow familiar/slightly unknowable jail.  it's hard to make my peace with that.  we are captives here.

the upshot is that every now and then, we can find these spaces and these people within which and with whom time becomes very fluid and thin, and we can just peek over the walls and into that place of promise. sometimes, we even get visits to that place.  we get to sneak over the wall or under the wire, and hike back into that green and lovely morning-place where it's all new and flush and vivid and there are no clocks or alarms or hourglasses or punch cards or anything, not even a stuffed crocodile with a clock in his mouth to remind us that we've won this part of the war.  there's just the sun and the trees and the clouds and the birds and crickets and centipedes and a flock of turkeys and something new to see around every corner.  we don't get to stay there for long, because even though it feels like time stops in this place, it really doesn't... but we can find the way back, any time we like, if we're willing to close our eyes and believe in the space we make between ourselves, when we are honest and good and kind and true.  it's very much the Kingdom of G-d between us, it's the intersection of the-already and the-not-yet.  and it is breathtaking.

it's not magic.  but it is a miracle.

he says we have our own time zone.

mil besos,
rmg