Some of you know that I’ve taken to watching old episodes of Dr. Who on Amazon Prime. My son David got me hooked on the series – we like both the adventure and the time travel aspect of the show. It’s fun to watch the Doctor and his human companions leave one morning for some far-off galaxy 10,000 years in the future, have a wild adventure in which the fate of everything hangs in the balance, and return back home five minutes after they left. It’s like the ultimate chance for a “do over.”
Dr. Who #11
Amy and Rory get married…again
In one episode, the Doctor loses his time machine (the TARDIS) and is forced to work here on earth to set things right. After some time, he asks his companion (who is stuck in the time machine without knowing how to operate it), “Is this how time usually goes? Incredibly slowly, and in the right order?” Before she can reply, something explodes and they’re both thrown off to the next alarming event. So the question never gets a proper airing. Too bad – it’s a good one.
So I ask. Is this how time usually goes? Incredibly slowly, and in the right order? I think the answer is yes. And also no. It depends on what sort of time we’re talking about.
If we’re talking about the past, then time goes however we remember it. And this means that you can make it go as fast or as slow as you like. Not only that, time doesn’t even have to go in the right order in your memory. So when time is in the past, you can make that snappy comeback immediately after you’ve been offended, instead of having to wait two weeks to think it up and run across the person who offended you. Time in the past can also be slow, either because it’s an event you want to savor (like your kid’s band/choir concert) or because it’s an event that you remember taking forever to get finished (like your kid’s band/choir concert).
Time, in the future, can go however we imagine it. My friends in psychology talk about something called planning fallacy – we always think things will take less time than they actually do and so we pack too much into our schedules. Sound familiar? We could think of it as an example of future time going faster than we anticipated. Wouldn’t it be great if you could finish things as quickly as you can say them instead of as quickly as they actually take. THE RIDE would have been done in a day or two. My laundry would be washed, dried and put away in five minutes. And that cut on my thumb would heal up in half an hour.
That didn’t take so long…
This went by way too fast…
This healed up in a snap!
And then there are those future events that, in our imaginations, take much longer than they do in real life. You know, things like setting up the Christmas tree (what a hassle). Or raking the leaves. Or taking the dogs out for a walk. One way to avoid even starting these is to imagine just how long and hard it will be to get them done. Better not to start.
And then there’s time in the now. The present. Where things go at the speed they’re supposed to, and in the right order. This is the way all time is supposed to be, I think, both time in our memories and time in our futures. But we speed up (or slow down) the past and the future for lots of reasons. We’re afraid of what happened or might happen. We want to hold on to our outrage about what happened, or we want to get a jump on being outraged over what’s going to happen. We are ashamed of what happened, or expect to be ashamed about what’s coming. All of these reasons to take time into our control and manipulate it for our ends.
Of course the present cannot be so manipulated, since the truth is that we are not in control. Time passes in the present. Incredibly slowly. And in the right order. And this, I think, is a blessing. Because it frees me to live and to see things as they come. It frees me to notice the way the trees change color from season to season, and how at some times I can see Puget Sound through the trees when I ride down Chambers Bay hill, and at other times I can’t. Since I’m not in control of the present time, I am free to watch Ernie and Burt make short work of a bone or wrestle in the family room. I am free to figure out the best way to write something true, using the things I’ve learned in the past.
Incredibly slowly. And in the right order. This freedom of the present – my lack of control over time – also means that I have to live through hard things as they come. The local restaurant owner who went missing. And the discovery of his body a few days after that. The severe pain that signaled a return of Dad’s cancer. And his slow, steady and partial recovery from that pain. The “about one more month to go” assessment of when my son’s braces will come off that lasted for over a year.
While I am not always gracious in accepting time’s “incredibly slow and in the right order” march, it is, I think, a worthy goal. Because let’s face it, there’s nothing I can do about the past and the future turns out how it does whether I have it all planned or not. And since I am not a time lord (like Dr. Who), I don’t get to fly off to the past to meet famous people and make things turn out differently. Which is probably just as well…
lynn hunnicutt 