The nature of time

Happening Happens, you and I will always be back then. And that is always true. And you and I will be always in the back then part. Never again happening nor will happen. But blessedly, happily there we will always be. Together, you and I will always be in the back then, in the little pocket “back then”. It cannot be grasped but it will always exist. 

I keep the little pocket in my purse to thumb every once and a while. It feels like little socks and smells like your clean hair, and tastes like shared blackberries and ice cream, and it sounds like Fee Ya Burds, tup’nce a bag, and it sounds like counting to ten and tastes like reading Papa Please Get the Moon for Me until my mouth goes dry, and it sounds like raspberries on your warm little tummy, like your salty alligator tears, your tiny fingers, and every shared cold, and like goodbye. 

Shimmers and shards of me used to gleam off of you, sparkles of the days we spent out in the sun and in from the rain, and every nap you took on my chest. That was the back then, and in the happening I only see glimmers of me in the corners of your eyes. Every time we meet again I’m scared you’ll stare at me for too long, none of my shimmers left in your eyes, none of our songs on your skin.

I learned about how time works from watching you. I was watching you dance and suddenly the truth came to me all at once that you would never be smaller than you are now, never be a baby again, ever. Ever. And then I realized that right now was really right now and that that was it. And to look forward would be to look away from you, and to look back would be the same thing. Neither of those things were right now. 

There might come a day when you have to crane your neck to see into Happened to remember my face or my name. I can only hope that when you smell gardenias you feel safe and loved. That when you sing Feed the Birds you feel warm and safe and sleepy and loved. I will always be loving you from back then, from Happened, from the place where the lost things go.