Summer Fundraiser 2013, Day 3

The theme of this quarter’s fundraiser is the amplitude of time — its nature, its passage, and how it is understood by those who experience it. The 9-11 terror attacks were what drew us into the blogging business, so it’s only fitting that we take a look at the flow of time as reflected in the horrific events of that day, and what followed afterwards.

Virtually everyone in America remembers exactly what they were doing on September 11, 2001. That’s the nature of how we experience cataclysmic events: they become part of the familiar furniture of one’s existence from then on, always present at the back of the mind, if not at the front of it.

My parents had such a moment on December 7, 1941. I shared with them a similar moment on November 22, 1963. September 11, 2001 was the first such moment in the 21st century.

I was working in Richmond that beautiful September morning, and as the news filtered through the office about what was happening in New York, everyone stopped working and gathered around in solemn groups, sharing what information they could collect. There was no TV in the place, and only one radio, which didn’t work very well. After the first half hour or so all of the major news sites on the web — CNN, Fox, the networks, Drudge, etc. — were overwhelmed and would no longer load. I was able to pick up the BBC site for a while, and saw photos of the burning towers in Manhattan. People stayed on the phone to their loved ones, hearing accounts of what was on TV. I talked to Dymphna almost constantly, and she reported what she was hearing on NPR.

Our office closed before lunch, allowing everyone to go home and stare at what was unfolding on television. By then both towers had collapsed, and the reruns of those choking clouds billowing out over lower Manhattan ran almost continuously, as if in a loop. I stopped off at a relative’s house and watched some of the coverage before making the long drive home.

It seemed as if my mind ceased functioning normally that day, a condition that persisted into the days that followed, only lifting gradually over a period of several weeks. I imagine that most people had a similar experience — it was as if the world no longer made sense, and normal thought was no longer possible. I went about humdrum daily activities in a fog, somehow able to function, but utterly preoccupied with what had occurred that day, and the aftermath of it.

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Summer Fundraiser 2013, Day 2

The Baron chose this fundraiser’s theme — i.e., the amplitude of time. Or, for me, time in all its variations… mostly those concerned with tardiness, for which I was frequently chided in grade school. The things one remembers.

When I consider the passage of time, its durance seems relative to one’s age and physical condition. In the latter case, severe pain suspends time, and the one who suffers does so in an endless loop of endurance, or so it seems whilst caught up in it. Any woman in the throes of labor can tell you there is only the pain ascending to a crescendo, breaking, receding, and then coming back in another relentless wave, each more insistent than the last. Then there are the final bursts of intensity until the plunge off the top of the cliff, a swift push over the edge.

Though we’re all fortunate that pain can be recalled, but not really experienced once past, it’s also true that we can’t forget it entirely. For most of my young adulthood I was quite healthy. Back then my experential knowledge of protracted pain was intimately tied to childbirth. When — this was between my second and third babies — I went to the oral surgeon to have some impacted wisdom teeth removed, and was coming out from ‘under’ whatever deep anesthesia they’d given me, I immediately asked to see the baby, which puzzled the oral surgeon but made the nurse laugh. Later on the way home, the feeling of empty arms, of something “being missing” was quite strong. Post partum depression over my wisdom teeth? Sure.

In later years during my theology studies, we were told that the Greeks had at least two words for time: our familiar chronos — the passing of time, and kairos — the right timing for an event, or perhaps the best possible moment, for example when you drew your first breath.

Thus we have the well-known Scriptural passage about kairos, or whatever word those ancient Hebrews used to denote timeliness (any Hebrew scholars are free to enlighten us in the comments):

One intriguing aspect of time is the various ways people process its passing. This isn’t about the philosophical differences between cyclical and linear time ( sacred time versus historical, “factual” time). What I mean here is the way people experience daily lived time.

For some, “the living is easy”, relaxed; there are no strictures, only those punctuations which occur during the event and will serve to remind us later. A two year-old on a walk is a good example of the unhurried amble with stops to inspect anything new: the point is the process, not the final arrival back home. What remains is the collection of memories, of people and objects encountered. Others seem pushed from behind by an enormous Mad Hatter muttering, “we’re late, when will we get there?” That’s the same child, eight or so years later, riding in the back seat on the way to the beach.

I usually fall into the “late” category. It is very difficult to leave wherever I am; for whatever reason the transition from one place to another is… umm… “fraught”. Pondering that problem, here’s a poem I wrote some years ago. And for those of you who hate poetry this contemplation is about fifty words or so. Besides, you can always skip it.

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