this is beyond "down the rabbit hole" and way past "through the looking glass". though it will make sense only to my geek friends, i'll put it this way-i have stepped into the TARDIS and spun crazily, crashing through every fixed point in the space-time continuum, only to stumblesteptumble and plant my metaphorical bottom right into the ground. i am reminded of the modest mouse lyric, "i am the same as i was when i was six years old, but, oh my god, i feel so damn old..." i am visiting my mother in the state...in the town...in the HOUSE in which i grew up. i have these moments when i wake up here, and before i have a chance to figure out where i am, i FEEL like i'm still a kid. of course, the delicious confusion gets quickly supplanted by the million, little ants of "i have 200 papers to grade-what am i going to fix for dinner-HOW will i find time to go for a run-dear lord is that a LUMP?" tromptromptromping through my brain. you know how terrifying things also seem exciting to kids? yeah, as you get older, the giddiness one gets from being terrified drops away from that feeling faster than dried macaroni popping off the paper plate in a kindergarten art project...leaving only the terror part, which, like the metaphorically naked paper plate, is wholly unsatisfying. but just for that MOMENT before i can even rub my eyes, i find it actually conceivable that i'll need to get out of bed, pack my strawberry shortcake backpack with my barbie trapper keeper and smurfs lunchbox, and lace up my keds before 3rd grade. my analogies are getting all muddled here. dang.
the point is, regardless of how old i get, i will always love the disequilibrium i feel when i wake up in my old bed and feel confused, not by WHERE i am, but WHEN i am. this, of course, is not to say that i don't want to be this age or in this life, but i do enjoy the transmutability of time that occurs every time i come home. case in point: i spent a most delicious afternoon catching up with a former teacher and current friend. we talked about books and politics and his kids and my mother and teaching practices/politics (in case you didn't know, i am a pedagogical velociraptor), all of it tinged with the time-machine feeling afforded by seeing the face across the table from me. somehow he has not aged at all, and i reveled in a sort of tingle-footed anxiety because while i preened with the false confidence of imagining myself a CONTEMPORARY of this guy, i simultaneously twisted with a kind of intimidating urge to speak to him like a student. that kind of push-pull feeling set me gloriously off-balance.
i've had plenty of other chances to have my brain and heart taffy-pulled into the past and then slingshot-flung back into the current.
for example:
...sitting out by the family pool (no, there is NO way to make that sound any less pretentious or snooty) listening to my mother tell stories about us, our friends, and and our relatives. she remembers every name, every peccadillo, and every charm of summers past. she has a mind that takes in every detail at the time and then gives it back later so clearly that i often forgot that i was visiting. i half-expected one of my brothers to come hummin' down the deck and hurl himself into the blue with a shrill CA-A-A-A-A-A-ANNONBA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-ALLLLLLLLLL!!! i repeatedly ducked my head under the water and viciously hoped so as i wiped chlorine sting from my eyes. no such luck.
for example:
...taking the dog for a walk after everyone has gone to bed. it feels so grown up to be "minding the house while the family sleeps", especially as i check each door to ensure that it's locked. because cicadas are cicadas no matter the year, closing my eyes makes it easy to think "school will be starting soon, so i'd better enjoy nights like this". i get jostled by snuffly-dog sounds, and am startled to look down at bailey (mom's pug) instead of ollie (dad's old bulldog). i have/get to sit on the front step because my knees have been stolen.
for example:
...mom and i SCOURED an old video (VHS!!!!) of my senior prom (dear, sweet jesus...so!! much!! taffeta!!) because i was terrified that i couldn't remember my father's voice. i strained there on the couch, hoping maybe there might be some footage of dad. the murmur of cheesy 90's tunes, as if there were any other kind unfurrowed by forehead and eased my grimace until we were laughing with the memories of aquanet and poorly fitting high heels and pink lights gleaming off of a rapidly-melting ice sculpture of our school mascot. it looked as though the warrior developed a nasty eating disorder. i waited and longed and ached and searched and peered...
...there he was.
and then, in ways that can never duplicated by still photos, an image made shaky by the combination of human hands a VHS video cam, he is suddenly alive. a split second (the video was about the kids, not the parents), he looks solid. he moves his hands. his eyebrows furrow and unfurrow. the fact that he doesn't acknowledge the camera makes him real. for that moment it is 1991 and i am seventeen and the cancer isn't there and he is alive...and again, my vision becomes obscured.
tomorrow i am heading back to california to resume the present as an adult, and to let the little anxiety ants march their way through my brain every morning. the "time machine" is going to be a plane, probably cramped, and my seat on it will probably be between an armrest poacher and a screaming baby. right now i am going to take the dog out and check all the doors and sit on the front step. then, i am going to shower and get into my childhood bed that is covered with bedsheets so old they are almost transparent. when i say goodbye to my mother, the hurt will be incandescent. but tomorrow i will wake up and enjoy one more morning of disequilibrium.
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