vaneramos | The flow of time

The Eaton Centre revisited, yesterday afternoon

~~~~~~~~~~

Science measures time by the oscillation of light. Our minds measure time by the falling of rain, the rise and fall of wings in a flock of geese, the space between here and the beginning of the universe, the blink of an eye, or the flash of a memory. Last night I swam in a nebulous sea, dark towers rising like pinnacles of rock from the glowing underground paths of a forgotten city. Figures move across the scene buying fries or approaching a bank machine. Two lovers sitting at a table in the food court lean closer together. Threads of stories weave around the tables, pass up and down escalators. Different levels, different lights, different visions.

Someone told me to begin writing my own personal mythology. Seven days doesn't make sense anymore. Neither does a god giving birth to sky, earth and sea. Long ago time gave a flicker, and in the space between two moments, something grew thicker while something else grew thinner. They pressed together, conflicted, words sparring across the gap. Light broke through like the glimmer on crystals at the edge of a melting pond. It was sterile and dark for a time, perhaps nine billion years until sunlight and lightning stirred the hydrocarbon sea, knitted molecules together in a repeating chain.

My own personal mythology begins on rich grass under the shade of two spreading mulberries. Another family used to use the other half of the lawn before they sold it to my parents. My stubby legs carried me there before my eyes saw where I was going. Strangers looked down from their picnic table, drinks and cigarettes in hand. I stumbled back and turned to my mother's open hands.

Our perception of time begins after the onset of the whole dilemma. Our eyes were open, gulping down this new vision, long before we started to record it in words on the multitude of disc drives in our brains. Something deeper than language is recorded from the first firing of neurons. Impulses laid paths months before we emerged into the world. Deep in the shadows you can still feel the twinge, the movement of surrounding lives, words heard but not understood. It is all there for the finding, but we don't have a tool to interpret it, only the stories told to us. We stretch these tales to fit our dreams.

Thursday evening we had stopped in Newmarket for pizza. On the way back to Guelph, Marian crumpled the greasy bag and held its rigid form aloft in the car. We were driving through twilight. I could just see its shadow. What did it mean?

"It's for making sense of things," she said. "If I stand in the hallway holding Tildred my umbrella, it makes sense of things."

"It's a sensolator," I suggested.

"Yes, Tildred is packed in my bag. This is my surrogate sensolator."

If I listen carefully I can almost imagine the lyrics to music playing on her headphones.

Later I go to the bedroom to say goodnight, but she has already fallen asleep in the bottom bunk, fully dressed. I remember the shadow of an infant lying in her crib, the colicky baby who screamed endleslly and never slept. Later, when she could toddle around, she would tear her room apart each evening, pulling shelves right off the wall, eviscerating stuffed animals. Now she lies still on the mattress, threads of time flowing around her graceful, dark form, away into the night. Without a word, I pull her door closed and drift down the hall.