Interlude: Time

     Time is a funny thing. We exert so much damned effort to understand something we just never can. It’s just too abstract… too unknowable. We carry watches and cell phones and constantly check the hour, hoping we’re not running late. Every member of the human race with even the slightest ties to the modern world blindly obeys the axiom of the calendar… mapping and plotting out the days and weeks and months ahead. Despite the fact that the future is never guaranteed.

     We can’t understand because time isn’t a thing: it is not an item we can hold in our hands, trying to memorize its contours and characteristics. No, time is just a stream of sensations we hear and feel and speak and taste and touch… then try to categorize and file in chronological order. But in the end, we always fail.

     The only true way to experience time is through the emotions that follow each moment and memory: the electric awareness of a lover’s touch, the quiet joy of a day spent at the beach, the stabbing misery of losing those we love. Even the most innocuous and insignificant moments in our timeline resonate with sensations. After all, boredom is an experience itself… albeit an uneventful one.

     Think of seasons. And I don’t just mean the literal positioning of the planet in relation to our parent star. No… I mean seasons in our lives. The periods we live through, ever taking for granted all the little nuanced details in the day to day. So many of these moments hold palpable, almost ominous sensations around them like a tattered quilt. I think back to my last spring home before leaving: the noxiously sweet aroma of sap and pollen heavy in the May breezes, the entomological sounds droning in the trees, the last glimmer of sunlight over a frequented lake as the sun crashed into the horizon. Or watching a woman I loved walk down an airport terminal, her dainty shoulders struggling under the weight of an oversized shoulder bag, bound for a new place and ending a period of time in both of our lives.

     I think back to moments like these and I am overwhelmed. I can feel the wind on my face, the heartache in my chest, and I can remember every other detail… except for the time. I can’t recall time standing to the side, tapping its foot and giving me an irritated, impatient look. I only have those moments.

     Maybe that’s why some people write. It’s quite possibly an excuse for my foray into this madness. Writing acts as a way to remember all of the times without the emotional baggage. Most of the times at least. But I know that I spend so much effort trying to remember in order to put it to page later. I watch the staccato images of my life passing by and I remember the feelings. Walking with my parents on a sunny day by the Pacific; hockey games watched in poorly lit bars with comrades and crazies; lying awake in the early morning, watching a beautiful girl sleeping; my little cousin sprouting higher and higher as each year passes; the lines in my face growing deeper and deeper. Most of all, I remember the little things; I leave time at the door.