Let's do the time warp...

There is nothing that fosters belief in the illusion of time more than taking a 15-hour road trip with children. It becomes all about counting, measuring, gauging.

Distance traveled is the most obvious to keep tabs on, then gas in the tank, minutes between 'are we there yets?' hungry tummies, parch-ed-ness, rest stops, endless stretches of road work, small stretches of no road work, drivers who prefer the passing lane, big trucks, day turning into night, smiles turning upside down, and then temporarily flatlining thanks to the technology that turns the radio into a story teller, the back seat into a movie theatre, and at moments the entire car into a concert stage.

There is nothing that disorients you more than arriving in the city you grew up in, that has been so overdeveloped and refaced that you can barely recognize it--and yet, it is still missing that je ne sais quoi.

There is nothing that helps you feel the passing of time more than sitting in your childhood bedroom, now a guest room--having long been emptied out of any sign of you, wall-paper discarded (thank god), new color pallet and accessories chosen to result in more universal appeal. Yet, even as you sit within, feeling sure the room must have shrunk, you are caught between who you were, once upon a time, and who you are now-- not quite able to reconcile the two, and perhaps a little thankful for that.

Yes, time passing, distances traveled, the mixture of the old with the new--all can hold you against your will a captive audience to the illusion, keeping you forever in the littleness of searching for its markers, its sign posts; comparing and contrasting, searching for meaning in the face-value--and perhaps most prevalently, for the elusive sense of belonging in a universe where the constant is change.

I am reminded of a dream I once had when I went to a friend's house only to find that new owners had moved in, and that my friend was long gone. I walked away from the nice strangers in her house attempting to put on my jacket, but it wouldn't fit. I struggled with it until I realized that it was sized for a five-year old. I wandered unable to recognize where I was, getting the feeling that I was a hundred years too late. Depending on perception this could be construed a bad dream--or a good one--think about the freedom! (I'll tell you for me the dream was stressful).

In another dream I was bombarded with images of an older woman I took to be me in my golden years. I shifted in an agitated state between anxiety and awe, until all of the sudden I felt myself declare I am not my body! At that, my dream-self shot up into the ceiling and found myself in a sort of belfry with metal scaffolding all over, which I could totally fly through. Yeah, it was awesome.

Thank goodness for these moments of reprieve, if only in our dreams, from being a dense form at the mercy of linear time and thinking, from the forces of gravity holding us down, and all of our conditioned thoughts about all of it.

I'm starting to have much more reverence for the four elements which do as they please!

Tonight I lift my eyes into the night sky, moving outside of time, to a place far enough away that it feels impossible to measure or gauge anything. I let its vastness connect my experience with all across time, who have ever used the constellations to guide them on their journeys, or to simply inspire in them rich stories, to those who have ever noticed a loving companion in the moon following them.

Then I inhale and exhale and feel the timelessness in that, connecting all of my own experience to itself within the rise and fall of the breath, that has never ceased to be--and I am still.