Tête-à-Tête-Tête

Anybody who has ever seen “Saving Private Ryan” can relate to the invasion sequence when time seems to have slowed down. Things start seeming to go in slow motion and the actions around you seem to be magnified. There just seems to be increased clarity. I have even heard athletes describe it as being “in the zone”.

Scientists now say that is an illusion.

I am not surprised that it is an illusion. How can anybody actually speed up or slow down time?

But since I am bearing down on my 50th birthday the following is one aspect of time that I can fully appreciate

Eagleman added this illusion “is related to the phenomenon that time seems to speed up as you grow older. When you’re a child, you lay down rich memories for all your experiences; when you’re older, you’ve seen it all before and lay down fewer memories. Therefore, when a child looks back at the end of a summer, it seems to have lasted forever; adults think it zoomed by.”

I see it like the sands in the hourglass that keep a constant rate of flow but towards the end it sure seems like the sand speeds up.

Time is like the sand. You see it slipping away. You know it is going and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. You want to warn those around you that time is slipping away but it is slipping away from them too. What can you do about that? What can they do about it?

And to a point it is as Barry says. You are only as old as you feel.

But trust me. There is coming a time when your age is not an illusion. It stares back at you and does not like what it sees.

I have seen myself in mall mirrors and wondered who in the hell that was.

I will always remember the time a young boy about 10 years old told me in a very complimentary tone that I reminded him of his Grandpa.

A week or so ago I was sitting in the car in Belks parking lot waiting for my wife. The  temperature actually had fallen into the 30’s so I had a quilt in my lap to keep me warm and was talking with my sister on the phone. I laughed and told her that I probably looked like an old man waiting on his wife. And then it dawned on me. Hell, I am an old man waiting on his wife.

Those were some of the moments of clarity for me. Everything seemed to slow down. For a brief moment I entered my zone. Manifestations of my mortality.

I am reminded of Byron Herbert Reece who spent the last day of his life taking photographs. Rolls of film. Trying to capture and to keep that which cannot be captured or kept.

Maybe someday Budouadana can write me a waka about time.