The Times They Are A-Changin’

Lately I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’ve spent it thinking about, well, time. The mathematical formula is, duh, { time } = {think} ; [think = time] therefore, (time + think) = ZERO!

Hours, days, months have vanished, never to have a mulligan do-over. I’d like to say I used my time wisely, that I’d been productive. I’d like to also say that I have Bezos' wallet and Einstein’s brain, but none of those statements would be true. I have wasted so much valuable time, in fact, that I find myself killing more of it wallowing in my regret. This is called spiraling into despair. I know because Google and I go on hourly quests.

One of the many useless observations I’ve made during lockdown is how the nature of time is changing, by seconds, and minutes, and hours..oh you get the point. I have entered the fourth dimension where the spacetime continuum repeats over and over and over again “what an unprecedented time we’re in.” My biggest fear is that time will knock on my door and say “Hellooooo, it’s 5am, time to get up! Life is resuming now!”, and I won’t be prepared. My second biggest fear is that time will never visit, because it went out for a pack of smokes and never came back.

Time; numeric, metaphysical, a measurement of events, relative or relational depending on which philosophers or theoretical physicist you follow. Time is money, running out, of the essence, or on my side. Time stands still, or travels at warp speed into light years away. Time is a moment, an age, an era, a millennium. It’s also a shape-shifter, taunting me as boredom takes me from one shelter-in-place settin’ spot, to another.

For me, time is not absolute because a one minute plank is sure heck-yeah a lot longer than 60 seconds of a foot massage. Right now…time is FOREVER. As I was thinking about the nature of time; duration, velocity, clocks, sundials, hour glasses and the like, I began to wonder when I first thought about time. (Remember please: (Time +Think) = ZERO.)

Was it watching The Twilight Zone as a kid? Reading a Wrinkle in Time?

I kept coming back to a moment, probably the first moment, when time Stopped, capital S. Not like time now where it seeps and bleeds and runs on and on, but when it actually stopped, and the world ceased its rotation.

I was five years old and it was a typical Saturday in the summer of 1968. My mom, two older brothers and I were at our swim and tennis club in a suburb of San Diego. Bathing caps, Coppertone, hamburgers and coca-cola, were on the menu for kids, and polyester, Tab, cigarettes and hard liquor were prix fix for adults. Everyone could whiff the turbulence that was emerging from the nightly news.

The club had two pools, one for little kids to splash in and the other for big kids to rough house or grownups to swim laps. I spent most of my time in the kiddie pool, mothering two year olds with the confidence of Nanny Poppins. Occasionally I swam in The Big Pool, for swim team practices. We minnows were the youngest and biggest group and it was jammed; kids slamming into other kids, swallowing and choking on water. As I kick-boarded my way through this madness I often watched our diving team. Those daredevils took leaps I could only dream of and boy, did I dream. Evil Knievel and Acapulco cliff divers were part of TV’s Wide World of Sports, and rock-star status was given to those that risked everything. I suppose all of this cultural admiration for danger stuck because I woke up on that summer day and vowed to be great.

We arrived at the club by 9am, an indication of my mother’s desperation, and signed in. We took our towels, toys, and sunscreen, and staked our claim on three lounge chairs by the pool which would serve as our homestead for the next eight hours.

I went to the kiddie pool first, but couldn’t take my eye off that diving board.

Hours went by, and I circled the 12 foot monster, like a caged cheetah, sizing up its risk, casing it like a pro. After lunch, when the crowd seemed bigger, more energetic I knew the time had come. Now or never.

I got in line.

The line was Disneyland long so I felt no fear at the outset. There were about a dozen kids on the concrete surround, five or six scaling the ladder, and two or three on the diving platform. Most of us stood shivering in the California air and for awhile I was engaged in my immediate surroundings, noticing tanned legs and squealing teenage girls. I was too young to feel socially awkward, but not too young to understand that I shouldn’t be there.

As the line moved I increasingly became aware of the death march I was on. Time was changing, slowly, and then accelerated like Captain Kirk’s Enterprise so suddenly, there it was; the ladder. The point of no return. One more step meant I was unequivocally committed. It was understood that to ever come down the ladder was a cardinal sin, in an era when sin mattered. I had heard stories of ostracized lepers who had whimpered and begged “I want off”, only to realize that the temporary relief they felt imprisoned them for life. Insults, and humiliation were followed by polite birthday party declines, or so I was told.

So there it was, the stairs. The din fell away, humanity became a backdrop. I knew that one minute past was not like the minute forward. Cold, trembling, I remembered my vow and stepped forward planting my foot on the first step, grabbing the steel bars. I hoisted myself up, careful not to touch the boy ahead of me. With each slow step I could feel myself more and more detached, wondering why I was there and what parallel universe had the real me.

One person away from walking onto the platform and two away from standing at the end of the plank.

Somewhere, like Auntie Em, my name was called, and I snapped out of it. My brother, Tom, stood below the ladder, yelling for me. He was only seven, and his face told me everything I needed to know.

I was going to die.

Other kids started yelling, “Hey! Get her down! She’s gonna get hurt!” Tom reached up but he was a galaxy away, and all the cries for help were drowned in the bedlam of the day. Witnessing my brother’s concern, which was anathema to his usual derision, I felt a lump in my throat. Tears welled up and, fear, vertigo and horror came crashing down on me so I did what I do best ….and talked to myself, “C’mon. It’s ok. You can do it. C’mon. It’s ok . You can do it.” My own voice became the rhythm of my walk and against all odds, I was able to reach the top of the platform.

I concentrated. The boy ahead of me, who was all pomp and peacock on the ground, was as silent as a night snowflake up here. Funny how much had changed. He walked slowly letting go of the final railing, closed his eyes and jumped.

My turn.

I knew Tom was watching, and I was pretty sure he was trying to find our mom to let her know I had cracked my skull. I tried to imagine those cliff divers, but my legs were wobbly and my shoulders caved in. “cmon. its ok. you can do it.” I resisted the urge to drop, grab the rough board and beg for my life, but truthfully I was too afraid to make any big movements anyway. “cmon, it’s ok, you can do it.” I inched and inched until finally the end. “s’ok, can do it”.

I looked down, and the abyss rose before me. I was a speck on the universe of frozen time, skidding along the Earth’s atmosphere, praying I could re-enter and not die a fiery death like those brave astronauts. No past, no future, suffocating under the present. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t hear, I just was. “S’ok.”

This was the first time I experienced the vagaries of time. It wasn’t linear, a mere measuring tool. It was entirely related to moving moments, and life’s experiences. I learned a lot in that instant.

I have no idea how long I stood there, though I’m guessing it was seconds. I do remember the violence when I hit the water and how deeply I submerged. I also remembered looking up to the pools surface and swimming like hell, bursting to breathe for the first time all day.

I had done it. My pre-dive fantasy of sibling one-upmanship was knocked out of me. I felt no arrogance, no urge to assert my bragging rights. I sat quietly next to my mom the rest of the day, like a war veteran who couldn’t talk about all she had seen.

My mom heard about the jump at dinner that night, and was upset with me, the lifeguards and probably herself. My brothers found a new source of taunts, “how stupid can you be” and the like, but I didn’t care. I held tight to the knowledge that for a brief moment, only I had the courage. They respected me, if only briefly, but that act of bravery could never be erased. I had crossed a threshold at that heightened moment and there was no turning back.

My daughter asked me to proofread a school essay and a sentence caught my eye. “The future became the present, the present the past, and the past into everlasting regret if you didn’t plan for it.” Tennessee Williams wrote in “The Glass Menagerie.”

Times are changing, but in the summer of 1968, I had used it wisely.