[ Sunday, May 23, 2004 ]
I received an e-mail in my bulk folder this week from someone seeking the help of a time traveler, or at the very least, help from an alien disguised as human who has the technology to travel physically through time.
Obviously, someone who knows me.
Said writer believed his life had been “severely tampered with and cursed.” He desired to “rewind my life including my age back to 4” while being “able to remember what I know now so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.”
The rest of us non-time-traveling folks call this process “having children.” It’s both easier and harder than it sounds, but then paradox is a condition familiar to the temporally challenged.
While we rush at the speed of light toward a state of terminal anachronism, we get to be 4 years old again through our children. We try to impart the wisdom of our years (dubious as it may seem) in the hope to preventing them from making the same mistakes or experiencing the same hurts that we did.
Through them, we rediscover lightning bugs and the mystery of color-changing Kool Aid and our first crush. Through them, we learn to ride a bike again, to tie our shoes, to mix AppleJacks and Cocoa Puffs indiscriminately.
Unfortunately, we also get to skin our knees again. We get to have chicken pox and bad haircuts. We get to be alienated teen-agers again, to suffer heartbreak like it was the first time.
And just like the first time, we get to feel powerless in the face of passing days. Just yesterday, he was in diapers, you know? Today, he’s wearing middle school colors and tomorrow he’ll be in a wedding tux.
Jim Croce was right: There never seems to be enough time.
By the way, if anyone knows how to create a vortex generator or where I can get some of those blue glowing moon crystals (properly shielded for radiation, of course), I’d appreciate a note.
If you have the time.
Peace.
**
(The precending appeared as one of my weekly Undercurrents columns for
The News Herald in Panama City, FL. See more in the online archive at the link.)
Unknown [5:19 PM]
