31-March-2007: Catching Up Time
No, I haven't been ignoring the readers of this blog. I know you are there because of my site's
web counter. It has been a while, but March is the busiest time of year for taxes. Things are now
slowing down. I expect another blip of intense activity as the end of the season approaches on April 30th.
One thing I have started lately is reading. Novels. This might seem odd because since I learned to read at eight years of
age I have always had a book on the go. I would read anywhere, anytime. I preferred not to drive on long trips so
that I could read while sitting in the passenger seat. Commuting by bus was wonderful when I used to do that because it
meant that I could read for about two additional hours a day. Always a half hour before going to sleep was devoted to the
current book. So, what do I mean by saying I recently started reading? And no, there's no epiphany here.
When I had my breakdown three years ago one of the side effects was that I could no longer read. Yes, my eyes worked and I
understood the symbols, but I could not concentrate. By the time I got to the end of a short paragraph I found I had
forgotten what the paragraph was about and I'd have to start over. Not very efficient when you have to read the first paragraph
of a book over and over again. Eventually, I simply gave up.
But about two months ago I was remembering the pleasure I used to get from reading and decided I had to recapture that. I mean,
when you have a problem you can either ignore it and live with it, or you can try to fix it. I have had to fix
myself several times during my life. So, I decided that the therapy was that I should reread some books that I remember
I especially enjoyed. I wandered through our book shelves and came upon The Time Traveler's Wife by
Audrey Niffenegger. It was perfect. Not only a great plot, but the writing is so lush that I read slowly, savouring each
sentence. Here is a section of one paragraph taken at random. The narrator is a thirteen year old girl who
has been regularly visited by a man from her future since she was ten years old.
I wonder if Henry could take me to the future. The woods are black and the trees bend over and whip to the side and
bow down. The insect hum is gone and the wind is smoothing everything, the grass is flat and the trees and creaking and
groaning. I am afraid of the future; it seems to be a big box waiting for me. Henry says he knows me in the future. Huge
black clouds are moving up from behind the trees, they come so suddenly that I laugh, they are like puppets, and
everything is swirling toward me and there is a long low peal of thunder. I am suddenly aware of myself standing thin
and upright in a Meadow where everything has flattened itself down and so I lie down hoping to be unnoticed by the storm which
rolls up and I am flat on my back looking up when the water begins to pour down from the sky. My clothes are soaked in an
instant and I suddenly feel that Henry is there, an incredible need for Henry to be there and to put his
hands on me even while it seems to me that Henry is the rain and I am alone and wanting him.
The story is told by two narrators: Henry, a person who has slipped loose from time and finds himself in different
places and times; Clare: the woman who met Henry when she was ten and grew to love and eventually marry him. Henry appears
to Clare at intervals throughout her adolescence; however, when she meets him in the now time, he doesn't know her because he
has not started travelling back to her when she was a child. It is a story of passionate love. Henry knew Claire intimately in the past when she
was a teenager; and Clare knows him intimately in his future from the stories he told her when she was a child.
The meeting of the past, the present, and the future has tragic consequences for both of them.
Besides having an interesting plot and superb writing, its subject of time travel is one that always gets my imagination going. You
should know me by now: my imagination likes to explore the limits of our universe. In this story, Henry's life is linear, but every now
and then, especially when he is stressed, he will visit some time or place in the past, suddenly appearing naked in places like cold allies,
or in a warm meadow. After a visit that might last minutes, or days, he snaps back to his present. He is often chased and beaten, or arrested,
but his visits to Clare are when he finds himself at peace. Clare nurtures Henry even when she is a child. Henry cannot change the past;
when he is there, it is part of the story of his life. The past becomes incorporated into his present. In his forties, he is
able to give the sixteen year old Clare a list of times and dates when he will appear to her because he remembers the visits as part
of his past.
Time travel is not explained. Perhaps it is genetic, as there are some odd gene sequences in Henry's DNA. His daughter is a
time-traveller who is at ease with it. Perhaps it
is psychological because his first time-travelling experience happened when his mother was killed in an auto accident while
he was with her. Henry frequently visited this event that played such a large role in shaping his psyche. Speculation aside,
it is a great read that I highly recommend.