[NOTE:If you have never read Kurt Vonnegut in general and SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE specifically I feel sorry for you and you should follow the link and pick up a copy NOW. If you are older and did not read him when you were young, well once again I feel for you.]
My first girlfriend, Valerie, and I came up with that term to describe that moment when an external stimuli unfixed you in the timeline of your life and you find yourself traveling, unbidden, back to another time and place. This is not to be confused with memory, which is a simple act of recall, when you BILLY PILGRIM you are IN that moment IMMEDIATELY. When it happens the events are all-around you, you are surrounded by the world of the time in question. You might actually be able to SMELL what was cooking or the trees in bloom, FEEL the warmth of a long lost summer sun or the rough weave of Levis wet from a dip in the river against your skin. It is more than memory, it is akin to being unstuck in time.
Jeff and I were friends for so long, passed through so many phases of our lives as friends and companions, that his memorial attracted visitors from a number of "lives" that I have lived. There was a ubiquitous table of racers of course, the most recent phase, as well as people from places in Jeff's timeline I did not know (work and before we met), but there were also those people from the place on the venn diagram of our days where the circle intersected. People from Fandom, people from College and so on.
As I looked out on their faces, all drawn together in love for Jeff and to support my family and I realized something, I still loved them all. Each and everyone of them took me back to a time, as Vonnegut put it:
"...when everything was Beautiful
and nothing hurt"
These days a lot of things hurt, physically and emotionally, but seeing the faces of these time travelers of my time line was like a cooling balm that soothed like the touch of the Witch of Westmereland. Their presence made the pains of the years fall away like parasites cleaned away. Smiling faces reminded me of costume parties, and musty classroom redolent with the smell of work print and acetone. I was suddenly in hallways singing bawdy song late at night with the thrill of a young man, just coming of age, that were I just a few years younger I would be doing something naughty.
So much of our culture now is influenced by metaphors from media. As a refugee from the game development world one springs to mind immediately, the idea that in a game you are given "multiple lives" and that if you DIE you will suddenly be brought back whole and strong to your companions. Nothing could be further from the truth, we get one shot at it boys and girls.
In addition to this there is simple fact that even though you will meet people throughout your life, the ones that you meet when you are young and starting out will always be the strongest bond. They will be the ones you do stupid things with, who hold your hair and bail you out and come to get you when that car that was "such a deal" strands you in Kettleman's City on New Years day. They will also be the ones who hold these memories in trust for you for the time when you need to be reminded how good life is and what it is like to really laugh and sing.
So if there is anyone out there who is reading this who has just set their feet upon the road I will give you this one pearl of advice, Choose wisely. Choose wisely the people who will be the guardians of your early days.
Looking out on that gathering of friends on Friday I realized I had...
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