The Time is Out of Joint

It's one of those rare moments--the sun is out after days of rain, my mother and father went off on a scenic drive through the countryside, and I have the house to myself so I can play my music loud, have chocolate for breakfast, and read lines of dialog from my novel-in-progress to  hear how they actually sound and edit for flow. If I keep busy, I can almost pretend that things are normal. I can almost be 18 again--and my mother's illness is still an unawakened, unimaginable future. But I'm not 18. In a few weeks I'll be 28, and last night, for a short time, my mother lost feeling in her left arm for no reason--another random symptom of the inoperable cancer growing in her spine and brain.

 I debate whether I should call and tell my brother, who can't be here because of job commitments. But is the arm incident worth mentioning or is it just a fluke? Does my brother need to know or will it worry him unnecessarily? Mom didn't bother to tell him, but she doesn't tell him much outside of the really big things, like hospital and doctor visits.  He gets his information from me most of the time. It's an impossible decision and it's in the back of my mind always; even as I pretend for a moment--even as I slip back into an earlier time and place.

Time doesn’t move in a straight line--not always. There are loops and curls and broad circular motions. Even the space between heart beats is not as consistent as we think.  It stretches out long and scrunches up short. It is not the calm river in the plains of metaphor, but more of a white water rapid ride through twisting, bowing canyons. Most of us are well accustomed to navigating that roiling river. We have phrases like "time flies" or "the days crawled by". We casually notice déjà vu, and don't blink an eye when the well known name of a friend of years or decades slips our tongue for a moment. We pause when something reminds us of yester-yore, and yet, we stay mostly in the moment.

 But cancer has taken my mother's sense of time and disoriented her within that flow. Today is yesterday and it's all happening after tomorrow. Half an hour is long, three days is short. Her childhood runs parallel to mine and she speaks in memories. I follow suit because I have never been good with time and because when it is just the two of us, linear moments fall away and the clock and calendar become suggestions. A week, a month, a day--it is all the same and it doesn't matter.

 Last night when her arm went suddenly numb the thought that she might be having another seizure, maybe even "the big one" forecasted by her doctors, crossed my mind for an instant. I cried out in my heart and said "No, not now. Please, this isn't a good time to take her!" The names replied "Will that time ever come? Will there ever be a 'good' time?"  I can't argue. There is no "good" time for death. There is only before and after. As we mark our lives by deaths and births and tragedies and triumphs. As we orient ourselves in our histories not by digital numbers on an alarm clock display but by events sewn into our being--it was "before we moved into the bigger house", or it was "after grandpa passed away"--as we mark our lives by one another, time is an intimate and personal thing.  There is never a good time for anything bad, nor a bad time for anything good. There simply is a time.

 Six years ago I asked Shai to rebook my mother's trip to the west and he did. I thought I would be able to handle this better with the benefit of age, as if I thought there was something which would happen over the years to lessen the pain of loss. There isn't. But even if there was, I see now that it would not be any different. Time is not a straight line. "Mommy, don't die" makes all of us five again. There is never a good time. Only a right one, a destined one. And when it comes there will be tears and heartache. And then life will go on…because it must.

That's something else the Names told me once. 

Beginnings

Zep Tepi. The first time. Or more aptly, a return to it. 

I have had other blogs before and they have fallen by the wayside with time. I spent too much time posturing and lecturing and trying to prove something to the world--and all of that is tiring. One eventually runs out of "world changing" things to say. One eventually realizes that much of it has been said before, and though well spoken words are magic of a kind that certainly can change the world, there is far more to it.

I was told once by one of the Names that while they can guide an arrow, it is up to the archer to draw the bow.   Nothing is accomplished without effort. Speaking is not enough. Without the breath of intent to give life to the spell of our words and without the movement of our limbs and the just actions carried out in our lives to give meaning to those utterances, they are but sounds. 

Many ancient languages do not include vowels in their written language because vowels were considered to be the breath of the speaker, the consonants merely instruments that the talented reader could make sing. I believe that our language--that all language--is much the same. My breath is lost in the translation to characters on a screen. Whatever my intent, this writing is only half my creation. The rest of the story is in the reader's hands. 

When I accepted my limited (though still important) role in this, I realized that speaking honestly and genuinely is of far more value to any reader than trying to "make them understand" something. I can not do that. Nor do I really desire that. I want to speak. I hope others read this and engage me in conversation because of it.  I hope a glimpse into my life provides the comfort of knowing that as superficial and artificial as the internet may sometimes seem, there are still real voices out there saying real human things. 

I am one of them. 

If you are giving your time to hear me, to connect with me, to share in my existence and maybe even share some of yours with me as well--Em Hotep.

 I value you.