Shaking the Snowglobe

I am over-caffeinated right now, which was unnoticeable while I methodically tapped my foot and turned pages of The Idiot inside Bazaar Cafe, and is now the color of my existence as I attempt to finish whatever it is here that I’ve started. I’m struggling because what could my writing today possibly have to do with an idea that was on my mind a few weeks ago when I first sat down, inspired. The original idea has had time to annex more space of argument and memory, take on greater importance and existential purpose. The relevance of the summer after junior year of college is now obvious. The connection to physics that I don’t fully understand? Paramount. The threads to brown pelicans need to be discussed. The exhaustive exploration of this idea must be recorded. 

But the lesson just sunk in, my “eddication” complete, at long last. This all began from a few words on a page that moved me, and it can end there. I just wanted to pass along the beauty. Others can feel free to have its magic soar them into new strata of thought and philosophy. I think it’s best if I just stay grounded and brief.

Time was on my mind as I turned twenty eight, a little over one month ago. It seemed to move faster than ever, in one particular direction. This speed is very different from those decelerating ticks I remember on middle school clocks, or the slowly filling in gauge of GShock watches during Catholic masses. Regardless of its speed in absolution or perception, it always has seemed to move. To progress. Forward. I imagine I’ll never not think about time this way, but recently this understanding flickered. A momentary glitch after I read something so profoundly beautiful and haunting, it broke the idea of time itself.

You see, on page 35 of the Arthurian (about King Arthur) novel, The Once and Future King, the reader learns something very important. And I was the reader, about one month ago. The something that is very important is that Merlyn, a wizard, and Arthur’s would be “tudor” and dear friend, was born at the wrong end of time and moves backwards, unlike us regular folk who were born at the right end and move forwards. So things can get confusing for him. And sometimes he needs to check in with who he is talking to to get oriented, like asking someone on the street where the nearest bus stop is, or asking a psychic who you’re going to marry.

Arthur serendipitously crashes through the roof of Merlyn’s forest cabin and acquaints himself. Merlyn begins his explanation of his unique relationship to time but briefly pauses. He asks if he has indeed already explained this to Arthur – a fact he is not sure of as he has not yet lived our experienced past, as to him it is part of his hypothetical future. Arthur, at this point in the story known only as “The Wart”, responds, “no”, this is the first time. In fact, they’ve only just met five minutes ago. Merlyn hears this. He responds, “So little time to pass”, and a drooping tear comes down his long wizardly nose.

That’s it really. Make of it what you will but for me this broke my world. I was in one way devastated, in another relieved, in another in love, and in another furious. An unexpected hello as profoundly sad as an unprepared and premature farewell. How foolish am I to think the events of my life that I’ve lived through are any more or less set in stone than the adventures I’ve yet to have, people I’ve yet to meet, and sights I’ve yet to see. And even more foolish am I to be upset that those stories are already set. All there is is this snippet of now that I just so joyously or saddeningly or neutrally happen to be passing through. It’s all the more argument to be present, notice your fleeting surroundings, mind your hellos, goodbyes, and passersby. For it’s not an energetic time nudging a static us, moment to moment, along like a conveyor belt amidst a two dimensional film set. It’s a lively us, happening to be, traipsing through these very possibly pre-written pages. Merlyn would suggest we read every word.