Time travel

While walking Emmet a few mornings ago, I listened to a podcast that discussed time travel. I was surprised to find that someone had bothered to research how people felt about it. I was even more surprised to find that several themes emerged. Going back was more appealing than going forward. Younger people welcomed a chance to change history, especially if they could right colossal wrongs like the Holocaust. Older people were less receptive to time travel, realizing the permanent ripples that a single past change could make. Despite being largely anti-time travel, older people made an exception for moving backwards to have a final meaningful conversation or to avoid an argument on the cusp of a loved one’s death.

I had never really thought about time travel, much less my personal stance on the issue. At the same moment I had this realization, I looked across the street. A woman was carrying a child that was too big to be carried regularly. He looked like a four or five year-old boy. His legs wrapped around her waist as his arms embraced her neck. She cooed and kissed the top of his head. He looked perfectly content. She looked at me and smiled.

My children are 22 and 23 years old. They are way too big to be carried at all, yet I can still imagine the smell of their sweet and sour childhood tang and the smooth, heavy warmth of their small and rubbery limbs. With that, I knew exactly where I stood on time travel.

School picture day

My husband — my law partner — is updating our firm’s website. As with all past upgrades, he kept this one a secret until the very moment he decided that it was time to take photographs. This morning, he cleared off his desk and asked me to take some action shots. The use of “action shots” amused me. What could be more action-packed than Chris sitting at his desk, looking at papers, holding a pen, and consulting a book? A few hours later he asked me to take some head shots of him. Other than the one where I made him make a duck face, this is my favorite.

Since Chris knew it was picture day, he could dress the part. He wore his favorite bow tie and a starched shirt. But me? When I dressed this morning, I was under the impression that it was a lazy Friday before a long weekend. I wore a very colorful cotton dress that I made, some yellow beads, and an armful of painted wooden bracelets. When he told me that it was my turn for head shots, I declined. I would like to look formidable and fearsome, I said, and this is not that. Chris looked at me for a moment and replied softly, “I have just thought all day about how pretty you look.” Chris does not say things just for the sake of saying things. So I relented. Other than the one where Chris told me to look like I couldn’t believe what my opponent was arguing, this is my favorite:

There is more to life than looking formidable and fearsome.

(But I still want a different picture on my law firm’s website.)

730

In the months following my cancer diagnosis, I tested the limits of Google to become the premier internet researcher on colon cancer. I found an obscure paper out of Australia suggesting that people who internalized their anger and their feelings seemed more likely to suffer. (Takeaway: If you felt that something was eating you inside, perhaps it was.) My oncologist listened politely to my inquiries about this paper. While she gently pooh-poohed its hypothesis, she allowed that a calmer, less anxious life was always a health benefit.

So I began meditating in early 2019. I chose the Headspace app because its founder had training as both a Buddhist monk and a circus performer, which seemed like an enviable balance to achieve. I immediately learned that I was terrible at meditation. My mind wandered. I would not sit to meditate, and while lying in bed, I would often fall asleep during the exercise. Some nights I could only muster a minute.

To compensate for my lousiness, I decided that I could at least be consistent. My app tells me that I have now meditated for 730 consecutive nights — two solid years. Some nights are better than others, but I still struggle. I will never shave my head and wear a saffron robe; I am more likely to learn how to juggle. But when confronted with troubling thoughts, I am now better able to view them as cars on the road: They pass, and I do not engage.

My daughter moved into a house recently. While she had plenty to do, she simply could not begin. She told a friend that she needed her mother there to give her instructions. I have been overwhelmed lately with too much to do — work, family, home, all that *&$% driving. Her idea of having instructions really resonated. I had strayed from the good routines of my life — regular times to go to bed and wake, homemade lunches, a time carved out to create, 20 minutes of exercise in the morning. There is nothing spectacular in this list, although it tells you the type of person I want to be: healthy, well-nourished, well-rested, creative. With a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, I have returned to these small things, and I have begun to feel better.

ALC