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“If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”
—Barry Lopez
(as Badger, in Crow and Weasel)

 

To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
- e. e. cummings

 

The Timeless
------ Time intrigues me to no end. On the one hand, it is our most precious natural resource. Once a moment is gone, it is gone forever. You simply can’t manufacture more time no matter how hard you try. On the other hand, it is entirely irrelevant, unreal; even non-existent. In my experience, the more “real” something is, the more timeless it becomes. The most important “things” exist outside of time and space.
------ It seems as though I grew up with headphones on my ears. People often joked about them being a part of my head. Perhaps my favorite invention is the personal stereo. With this device, I can take my world literally anywhere. Growing up, I ended each day the same way. I would put on my headphones and fall asleep to whichever album was of interest at that time. Certain periods of my life became almost synonymous with the songs of that time as the day’s events would race through my mind, intertwined with the music as I entered dreamland. I didn’t realize the extent of this mystical union until a very recent experience brought it to light.
------ The advent of the mp3 player has made it very simple for me to take the vinyl relics of my past and restore them to their rightful place. Once again I am free to experience the sounds of days gone by as I lie in bed at night. This activity has brought back so many wonderful memories. I have often heard that our sense of smell is very closely linked to our memory, and I known this to be true. While smells possess the power to trigger outworn memories, music possesses the power to transcend time and space, penetrating the very core of our heart.
------ At the end of a long day I was very tired. It was the kind of tiredness one experiences when events, both experienced and dreamed, cause the emotions to race at breakneck speeds. The mind and body were indeed worn out, but the heart was wide-awake. I knew better than to attempt to read myself to sleep. The mind would wander endlessly through the events of the day and the hope for tomorrow as I turned pages that had been read but not absorbed. Only music could bring this day to a close.
------ I put the headphones on and scrolled through the various albums I had transferred to the mp3 player until I came upon one that seemed to fit my mood. As I began listening, it wasn’t long until I lost all sense of awareness of time or location. The feelings, sights, sounds, and special people I had subconsciously associated with the album fully replaced the thoughts of the day. It is very difficult to put into words, but I found myself feeling the same emotions I felt then. Next, my senses were even tricked into smelling the aroma of the images in my mind. A rush of feelings came over me as I was literally reunited with the people and places of the past.
------ Almost as quickly as the feeling came, reality began to take over and I began to slip back into the awareness of where I was and what I was doing. As my friends and experiences slipped away I felt great pain. The feeling was so profound that my eyes filled with tears. In a very real sense I felt the pain of losing a loved one as I realized that I couldn’t reach out and hold the experience. I realized that the moment was gone, and the finality of it was overwhelming. As is often the case, a familiar song lyric* popped into my mind. “Sometimes in the night I feel it, near as my next breath and yet untouchable. Silently the past comes stealing, like the taste of some forbidden sweet.”
------ The roller coaster ride continued as I felt my emotions shift back to “now” and to the events that had charged my emotions to begin with that day. I became inspired by the power of music and memory and by the very idea that the years had in no way dampened the depths of my feelings. I could envision a time in the distant future when today’s passions would come “silently steeling, near as my next breath.” Empowered with the realization that each “now” consists of a glorious co-mingling of past/present/future; I was, and am, overwhelmed with the idea that the passage of time is a cumulative phenomenon. Each experience attaches itself to our souls like a snowball barreling down a beautiful snow-covered mountain. One-by-one the memories mount, adding to the culture that comes to define who we are. As the memorable events pass, there is no loss. Everything that ever was still is, we just allow it to be covered by more and more layers of the mundane. The music that night simply triggered something that allowed me to open my heart to reveal what lies beneath the more recent outer core of experience.
There are only two differences between the analogous snowball’s journey and our own. There is no bottom of the mountain to end our journey. And, as the collection of our memories gains in size and momentum, the “snowflake” that started the whole process remains intact; indeed, a microcosm of our collective list of experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
------ When I finally fell asleep that night, I did so with great warmth in my soul. I had come to an understanding that the part of me that is “purely and fully me” has never changed. Indeed, I realized that I had found the “fountain of youth” that explorers, poets, and sages have tirelessly sought through the ages. On my latest birthday a friend asked me my age. I only answered with the comment, “That’s an irrelevant question.” At the time I didn’t realize just how true that statement was, and is, and always will be……..

© 2004 The Trill House

(Note: I couldn’t work it into the fabric of the “story,” but I can’t get out of my mind the idea about the “mundane” events building up layers upon our existence. It seems to me that the “mundane” whispers, the “tragic” shouts, and “beauty” sings. How then can we come to make the mundane sing as well? Isn’t that the trick? Seeing the extra-ordinary in the ordinary? - - I also did not work into the story the realization that the reckoning with the “death” of the past that I experienced that night served as a sort of “training ground” in preparation for dealing with the death of a loved one. I recall thinking that night about the stark realization that in the not-too-terribly-distant future I will deal with the death of my parents. It also seems like I am never entirely removed from the fear of the horrible potential for dealing with the death of a child. A friend who experienced that harsh reality said to me not too long ago “I pray you never have to know that feeling.”)


* The song referenced in the story is Dan Fogelberg’s “Ghosts.” The full lyrics follow:

Sometimes, in the night I feel it
Near as my next breath
and yet, untouchable
Silently the past comes stealing
Like the taste of some forbidden sweet

Along the walls; in shadowed rafters
Moving like a thought through haunted atmospheres
Muted cries and echoed laughter
Banished dreams that never sank in sleep

Lost in love and found in reason
Questions that the mind can find no answers for
Ghostly eyes conspire treason
As they gather just outside the door ...

Every ghost that calls upon us
Brings another measure in the mystery
Death is there
To keep us honest
And constantly remind us we are free

Down the ancient corridors
And through the gates of time
Run the ghosts of days
That we left behind

Down the ancient corridors
And through the gates of time
Run the ghosts of dreams
That we left behind

Sometimes, in the night I feel it
Near as my next breath and yet, untouchable
Silently the past comes stealing
Like the taste of some forbidden sweet

Every ghost that calls upon us
Brings another measure in the mystery
Death is there
To keep us honest
And constantly remind us we are free

Down the ancient corridors
And through the gates of time
Run the ghosts of days
That we left behind

Dan Fogelberg
© 1981 CBS Inc.