Time

“Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say” --- Roger Waters (Pink Floyd,  “Time”)

I drove almost a thousand miles over the weekend, to reunite with a handful of friends I had not seen in a very long time – in some cases, 40 years.  I’d decided to make the trip despite a great deal of trepidation.  Much of the time that had passed since I’d seen most of them had not been particularly kind to me.  I thought I’d have nothing to say that could possibly be of interest to these people, high achievers all.  I feared that the connections we’d once made had grown stale.  I imagined that it might be awkward to come face to face with the woman with whom I’d shared a home and the most intimate details of life, a lifetime ago.

My fears almost won out; but in the end, the prospect of missing out on what would likely be a once-in-a-lifetime experience proved too high a price for the comfort of avoiding the unknown.  And so I climbed into my time machine, and I drove.

Recently, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, in character as Marty McFly and Doc Brown from the iconic 1985 film Back to the Future.  The occasion was “Back to the Future Day” – 10/21/2015, the date on which the film’s protagonists arrived in their DeLorean car/time machine, 30 years into the future. 

On the Kimmel show, there was a humorous skit in which the time travelers compared their circa-1985 expectations of what 2015 would look like against reality.  30 years is a long time, and much had changed, in ways that were not quite in line with what they’d imagined.  Adding a decade to that approximates my frame of reference and mindset as I stepped out of my own time machine, into the driveway of my old friend’s home in Maryland. 

I arrived with no expectations.  Surely I wasn’t going to find the same people I’d hung out with back in the Disco / CB Radio era.  As with Marty McFly, nothing could have prepared me for the reality that was about to unfold:  Hugs all around; a few wrinkles that I stopped noticing after about five seconds, as they faded from view, becoming invisible as if through some mysterious alchemy, leaving only familiar faces that I’d have sworn I’d seen just last week.

None of us had stayed in our hometown.  Some had relocated far and often.  Others, like me, had simply put down roots and built lives elsewhere.  We had taken a rich variety of paths.  Among us were a chemist, an engineer, a professor, a librarian, and an artist.  The presence of the professor, and the demographics of the rest of our little cohort, briefly tempted me to draw a Gilligan’s Island analogy; but no matter how I configure the cast, I end up being Gilligan, so that’s a no-go.

There were so many stories.  Those that most inspired me were about overcoming incredibly painful situations, and about personal transformations – emerging from former identities so as to become truer to ourselves.  These resonated with me, I think, because I am standing somewhere between the two.  There were truly impressive tales of success, and tears of regret.  Time, once gone, cannot be reclaimed.

Our weekend together was great fun, and I hope we’ll follow through on our promise to each other that we’ll do it again. I was moved, at an emotional level and in a way that I hadn’t experienced in a long while. To a degree, I’m still trying to sort out ‘what just happened.’  I know this: for a few days, I experienced the magic of time travel. It involved great joy as well as great pain.

Too often, it takes a tragedy of some kind to remind us to hold our loved ones just a little closer; we react, but our responses are fleeting, and our memories short.  Like the addict who knows full well that his actions will kill him one day, we become addicted to our own lives, our routines, our ways of being.  The older we get, the more true this becomes.

Time is our greatest gift, but just as the top of an hourglass slowly, inevitably drains, time is also a thief, robbing us of itself.  Our DeLoreans have now plopped us squarely back into the reality of the present day.  What we do from here is on us.  

If any of my dear friends who attended NTBC1 happen to read this, thank you for everything.