I’ve written about three pieces in this vein, I’m still trying to decide my thoughts on my relationship to time, time blindness, missing people, and how that influences all aspects of my life. Normally I don’t really share pieces that are in process but I feel like I want to share this as a way to pin down what I’m really trying to say. This is apart of the bigger body of work for Dawn of Boy. it may get culled, it may morph and develop, who knows lol. I definitely don’t consider it finished or good by any stretch of the imaginations but I do think there are some elements of it that are touching on what I’m attempting to dig out and examine. As a prize there are some shots of the baby from our trip to anchorage in June. It was my trip home that really got me thinking about all of this. So for the last month I’ve been attempting to process. So anyways, lol.
In the year since you’ve been born I’ve gained awareness of this strange ability I’ve had to pause the once inevitable passage of time. If I don’t see someone, or talk to someone there isn’t a measured distance to me. They are simply “paused” -something I have always referred to it as, but never recognized- if I haven’t seen a loved one in a year, or gotten lunch with a friend in three months, when we see each other again it really feels to me as if no time has passed.
I thought that was the mark of true friendship, or true love. But it is a dysfunction in perception, a warped reality. Missing someone is sad, a painful offense and sometimes when someone makes you miss them, it’s unforgivable.
Everyone in my life is perpetually how I left them- or so I thought. Everyday, you change and grow faster than my object permanence can keep up. I can’t freeze you in my minds eye because the you of yesterday is miles behind the you of today, of right now, of tonight. You were not as I left you, in your crib sleeping soundly the evening before. I find you this morning, talking and bigger and brighter and faster. In the time I set you on the floor, strode across the house to fetch your milk and back you’ve updated into six improved versions of yourself(bug fixes) and I’m beginning to grasp that time for most, (maybe even myself) is not infinite or pause-able.
So how do I reconcile this? How do I be a better friend, a better family member, more sensitive to the limited ticking sands? How do I keep you as you are right now, but honor you of the future, and what you are actively becoming? Is it possible that some are tasked with holding the constant, holding space? Can it also be possible that I myself cannot face how quickly it all goes, that distance physical and of the heart is so painful that I retreat within my head in some sort of self preservation, some sort of delusion so nothing changes?
Even if it’s been awhile, you’ll see it’s never been long with me. Is this blissful state of mind keeping me from greater depth, greater understanding, deeper chasms?
