| General Non-Fiction posted March 9, 2020 |
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Time-Travel Travails: wishful stopwatch-ing
Physics for Dummies
by Elizabeth Emerald
When I was in school we were taught that our universe began with a Big Bang, and that its consequent rapid rate of expansion would eventually slow. Makes sense. But it turns out it isn’t true. In fact, it has since been proved that not only is the universe continuing to expand, its rate of expansion is accelerating. This seems to me counter-intuitive. As regards time, however – versus space – I say: right on!
That is, Time is racing faster and faster – a week goes by in five days, a month in three weeks, a year in nine months. By next year – that is, nine months from now – it will take just four days for a week to pass, two weeks for a month, and 6 months for a year. Inevitably, Time will pass, paradoxically, in no time at all. Blink: you’re born; blink: you’re dead, with nary a blink between.
As Time races ever faster, it hurls us and all our possessions into ever-expanding space; we tumble ever farther from everyone and everything we once held dear. All the whoevers and whatevers each of us tries futilely to cling to are flung far and away. Erstwhile eternally-entwined lovers are irretrievably, invisibly, paralleled elsewhere in the vast multi-verse, summarily cast out of our lives and minds and into others’. Heartfelt letters and treasured mementoes of long-passed precious moments vanish into the ether, Time having freed them from our safekeeping with its skeleton key. Photographic proof-positive morphs into a negative; the husband is long gone, together with the forever-and-ever ring. The creamy cashmere dress and butter-soft booties the bride wore as she stood beside her ghostly groom in that Kodak moment have long since disintegrated, along with the marriage, dispersed: unfettered atoms swirling somewhere on the dark side of a distant moon.
*********************************************************************
Freeze-Frame.
There’s a song of that title. I don’t know if the writer coined the term; I just wanted to make clear I can’t claim credit—though it sure suits my musings at this moment.
This very moment: Snap-shot.
Where am I? What do I see? What’s wrong—or right—with this picture?
I am on my faux-faded denim couch with the white-curlicue, stylized-floral motif. I’d bought this couch as an ill-suited companion to the rose-and white way-over-stuffed sofa, now divorced and residing in a non-adjoining room.
I actually liked these pieces once-upon-a-time, the same once-upon-a-time I liked my second husband. (He didn’t care for the couches, but still cared for me, until three years post-purchase.) Now, I look forward to the day I can toss the pair of them (couches, that is; husbands have long since been tossed). Even apart from their being infused with the fur of two felines and impaled by the hairs of an ill-camouflaged canine—the couches do not suit my taste. I no longer care for pink-and-blue. Salmon and teal are my colors of choice.
What do I see?
I see rings on my fingers: The onyx/mother-of-pearl checker-board from my best friend Anna, fortunately still my best friend. (The grey pearl ring from my Best Man has been retired; reluctantly banished, at long last, for having continually snagged my tights during its five years of continuous duty. The man himself, fortunately, has not been retired/banished. So far, so good.) On my left fourth finger: An “Art Deco” sterling ring made at Buck’s Rock camp in summer of ’71—which had lain forlorn for forty years thereafter—has long since supplanted the golden ghosts of men-ships past. (It is perhaps pretentious to refer to something made in seventies’ summer camp as “Art Deco”; I can’t even claim for certain to have crafted it given my sister recalls having made it for me.) Finally: My abalone-in-silver ring, from Best Man on my 54th birthday, as replacement for an identical one I’d bought myself the year prior—that one having been flung off of, and far from, my finger during frenetic flailing to fifties fasties. (Alliteration overkill: guilty—to the tenth degree.)
What do I see?
On my right wrist: A bold-faced Bazooka-pink watch with matching leather strap that looks like it’s suffered some serious chewing. The face and case are still pristine, and the watch itself, alas, keeps perfect time.
I say “alas” because I dread seeing that second hand inexorably ticking away the minutes, hours, days, of my life. I want to Freeze-Frame Now.
Now: While I’m—perversely, given my age—at the peak of my health.
Now: While I’ve still got my friends—less the three already dead this past year—their health long-since peaked, perhaps, but not yet noticeably declined.
Now: While my one son is a thriving farmer; my other son a published-pending author; and my daughter an admirably competent ER nurse.
Now: While daughter nurse is in remission from the Multiple Sclerosis that had so mercilessly stuck her on the wrong end of the syringe.
Now: While Best Man is in remission from the Lymphoma that has lurked insidiously, silently; five full years now since the day it so rudely spoke up.
Now: While summer lingers lazily, ninety-three degrees on this Labor Day.
Freeze-Frame.
When I was in school we were taught that our universe began with a Big Bang, and that its consequent rapid rate of expansion would eventually slow. Makes sense. But it turns out it isn’t true. In fact, it has since been proved that not only is the universe continuing to expand, its rate of expansion is accelerating. This seems to me counter-intuitive. As regards time, however – versus space – I say: right on!
That is, Time is racing faster and faster – a week goes by in five days, a month in three weeks, a year in nine months. By next year – that is, nine months from now – it will take just four days for a week to pass, two weeks for a month, and 6 months for a year. Inevitably, Time will pass, paradoxically, in no time at all. Blink: you’re born; blink: you’re dead, with nary a blink between.
As Time races ever faster, it hurls us and all our possessions into ever-expanding space; we tumble ever farther from everyone and everything we once held dear. All the whoevers and whatevers each of us tries futilely to cling to are flung far and away. Erstwhile eternally-entwined lovers are irretrievably, invisibly, paralleled elsewhere in the vast multi-verse, summarily cast out of our lives and minds and into others’. Heartfelt letters and treasured mementoes of long-passed precious moments vanish into the ether, Time having freed them from our safekeeping with its skeleton key. Photographic proof-positive morphs into a negative; the husband is long gone, together with the forever-and-ever ring. The creamy cashmere dress and butter-soft booties the bride wore as she stood beside her ghostly groom in that Kodak moment have long since disintegrated, along with the marriage, dispersed: unfettered atoms swirling somewhere on the dark side of a distant moon.
*********************************************************************
Freeze-Frame.
There’s a song of that title. I don’t know if the writer coined the term; I just wanted to make clear I can’t claim credit—though it sure suits my musings at this moment.
This very moment: Snap-shot.
Where am I? What do I see? What’s wrong—or right—with this picture?
I am on my faux-faded denim couch with the white-curlicue, stylized-floral motif. I’d bought this couch as an ill-suited companion to the rose-and white way-over-stuffed sofa, now divorced and residing in a non-adjoining room.
I actually liked these pieces once-upon-a-time, the same once-upon-a-time I liked my second husband. (He didn’t care for the couches, but still cared for me, until three years post-purchase.) Now, I look forward to the day I can toss the pair of them (couches, that is; husbands have long since been tossed). Even apart from their being infused with the fur of two felines and impaled by the hairs of an ill-camouflaged canine—the couches do not suit my taste. I no longer care for pink-and-blue. Salmon and teal are my colors of choice.
What do I see?
I see rings on my fingers: The onyx/mother-of-pearl checker-board from my best friend Anna, fortunately still my best friend. (The grey pearl ring from my Best Man has been retired; reluctantly banished, at long last, for having continually snagged my tights during its five years of continuous duty. The man himself, fortunately, has not been retired/banished. So far, so good.) On my left fourth finger: An “Art Deco” sterling ring made at Buck’s Rock camp in summer of ’71—which had lain forlorn for forty years thereafter—has long since supplanted the golden ghosts of men-ships past. (It is perhaps pretentious to refer to something made in seventies’ summer camp as “Art Deco”; I can’t even claim for certain to have crafted it given my sister recalls having made it for me.) Finally: My abalone-in-silver ring, from Best Man on my 54th birthday, as replacement for an identical one I’d bought myself the year prior—that one having been flung off of, and far from, my finger during frenetic flailing to fifties fasties. (Alliteration overkill: guilty—to the tenth degree.)
What do I see?
On my right wrist: A bold-faced Bazooka-pink watch with matching leather strap that looks like it’s suffered some serious chewing. The face and case are still pristine, and the watch itself, alas, keeps perfect time.
I say “alas” because I dread seeing that second hand inexorably ticking away the minutes, hours, days, of my life. I want to Freeze-Frame Now.
Now: While I’m—perversely, given my age—at the peak of my health.
Now: While I’ve still got my friends—less the three already dead this past year—their health long-since peaked, perhaps, but not yet noticeably declined.
Now: While my one son is a thriving farmer; my other son a published-pending author; and my daughter an admirably competent ER nurse.
Now: While daughter nurse is in remission from the Multiple Sclerosis that had so mercilessly stuck her on the wrong end of the syringe.
Now: While Best Man is in remission from the Lymphoma that has lurked insidiously, silently; five full years now since the day it so rudely spoke up.
Now: While summer lingers lazily, ninety-three degrees on this Labor Day.
Freeze-Frame.
That is, Time is racing faster and faster – a week goes by in five days, a month in three weeks, a year in nine months. By next year – that is, nine months from now – it will take just four days for a week to pass, two weeks for a month, and 6 months for a year. Inevitably, Time will pass, paradoxically, in no time at all. Blink: you’re born; blink: you’re dead, with nary a blink between.
As Time races ever faster, it hurls us and all our possessions into ever-expanding space; we tumble ever farther from everyone and everything we once held dear. All the whoevers and whatevers each of us tries futilely to cling to are flung far and away. Erstwhile eternally-entwined lovers are irretrievably, invisibly, paralleled elsewhere in the vast multi-verse, summarily cast out of our lives and minds and into others’. Heartfelt letters and treasured mementoes of long-passed precious moments vanish into the ether, Time having freed them from our safekeeping with its skeleton key. Photographic proof-positive morphs into a negative; the husband is long gone, together with the forever-and-ever ring. The creamy cashmere dress and butter-soft booties the bride wore as she stood beside her ghostly groom in that Kodak moment have long since disintegrated, along with the marriage, dispersed: unfettered atoms swirling somewhere on the dark side of a distant moon.
*********************************************************************
Freeze-Frame.
There’s a song of that title. I don’t know if the writer coined the term; I just wanted to make clear I can’t claim credit—though it sure suits my musings at this moment.
This very moment: Snap-shot.
Where am I? What do I see? What’s wrong—or right—with this picture?
I am on my faux-faded denim couch with the white-curlicue, stylized-floral motif. I’d bought this couch as an ill-suited companion to the rose-and white way-over-stuffed sofa, now divorced and residing in a non-adjoining room.
I actually liked these pieces once-upon-a-time, the same once-upon-a-time I liked my second husband. (He didn’t care for the couches, but still cared for me, until three years post-purchase.) Now, I look forward to the day I can toss the pair of them (couches, that is; husbands have long since been tossed). Even apart from their being infused with the fur of two felines and impaled by the hairs of an ill-camouflaged canine—the couches do not suit my taste. I no longer care for pink-and-blue. Salmon and teal are my colors of choice.
What do I see?
I see rings on my fingers: The onyx/mother-of-pearl checker-board from my best friend Anna, fortunately still my best friend. (The grey pearl ring from my Best Man has been retired; reluctantly banished, at long last, for having continually snagged my tights during its five years of continuous duty. The man himself, fortunately, has not been retired/banished. So far, so good.) On my left fourth finger: An “Art Deco” sterling ring made at Buck’s Rock camp in summer of ’71—which had lain forlorn for forty years thereafter—has long since supplanted the golden ghosts of men-ships past. (It is perhaps pretentious to refer to something made in seventies’ summer camp as “Art Deco”; I can’t even claim for certain to have crafted it given my sister recalls having made it for me.) Finally: My abalone-in-silver ring, from Best Man on my 54th birthday, as replacement for an identical one I’d bought myself the year prior—that one having been flung off of, and far from, my finger during frenetic flailing to fifties fasties. (Alliteration overkill: guilty—to the tenth degree.)
What do I see?
On my right wrist: A bold-faced Bazooka-pink watch with matching leather strap that looks like it’s suffered some serious chewing. The face and case are still pristine, and the watch itself, alas, keeps perfect time.
I say “alas” because I dread seeing that second hand inexorably ticking away the minutes, hours, days, of my life. I want to Freeze-Frame Now.
Now: While I’m—perversely, given my age—at the peak of my health.
Now: While I’ve still got my friends—less the three already dead this past year—their health long-since peaked, perhaps, but not yet noticeably declined.
Now: While my one son is a thriving farmer; my other son a published-pending author; and my daughter an admirably competent ER nurse.
Now: While daughter nurse is in remission from the Multiple Sclerosis that had so mercilessly stuck her on the wrong end of the syringe.
Now: While Best Man is in remission from the Lymphoma that has lurked insidiously, silently; five full years now since the day it so rudely spoke up.
Now: While summer lingers lazily, ninety-three degrees on this Labor Day.
Freeze-Frame.
 Recognized |
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Thanks to Dick Lee Shia for the artwork: Time Traveling Time.
Alas, since the time of writing, four years ago, three more friends have died. My daughter's illness has insidiously--despite our mutual denial these four years--progressed to the point that she was forced to give notice: effective two weeks from today. As for the Bazooka watch? I let the battery run down--my pathetic attempt at stopping time.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Alas, since the time of writing, four years ago, three more friends have died. My daughter's illness has insidiously--despite our mutual denial these four years--progressed to the point that she was forced to give notice: effective two weeks from today. As for the Bazooka watch? I let the battery run down--my pathetic attempt at stopping time.
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