Layers
In effort to characterize this time (before the birth of your first child), the image of a layered rock comes to mind. I’ve been thinking about time, and the lifeline, and these are strange things that I can only attempt to explain to myself by using other things to explain them.
At first I thought that the way in which I could describe this time would be a sedimentary rock, but then I wondered if I was getting the remnants of early days science all mixed up. So, one does as anyone does these days with questions, Google.
“Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation.”
and then
“Metamorphic rocks were once igneous or sedimentary rocks, but have been changed (metamorphosed) as a result of intense heat and/or pressure within the Earth's crust. They are crystalline and often have a “squashed” (foliated or banded) texture.”
I think that settles it.
What stands out for me with regards to sedimentary rocks are the words “accumulation” and “followed by cementation.” At first read, I thought it said cremation, and that felt fitting too, reassuring even, pointing to the truth, things die and death has a part in the cycle too.
Time, this lifeline, feels well encapsulated by the evolution of sedimentary rocks into metamorphic ones. The visual of a metamorphic rock has always appealed to me, and the process of their creation, “as a result of intense heat and/or pressure” touches on something. The container of a time-bound life creates this. I think it helps me allude to what I am feeling about life right now. Even the characterization of a “squashed texture” feels a good fit.
Ok, that is enough of a science, for today.
There are these layers to this time, just like the layers to the before time that are squished up so close beside or on top of it. It is almost, as though, at first glance you aren’t really sure what layer we are in yet, and perhaps, that is all I am trying to name. Locating and losing oneself in the layers of life one has lived and the life presently being lived.
My mind is busy with the strangeness of it (this time), the novelty of it warming my heart at the same time. Somehow, language compels me to write it down. Sweeping moments of urgency to write it down, to communicate all that I see going on, and all that I don’t see, but feel with deep potency. It is easy to romanticize where I am in the lifeline, on the cusp of something life-altering, but the beauty is really how complicated and layered it is, and my heart is aware of how much pain surrounds these transitional life moments too. Joy and grief.
Ramblings aside, I am mostly just grateful to the part of myself that picked up a book yesterday that is providing me fuel. It is a book of Essays, from Ann Patchett, “These Precious Days.” It makes me re-think what is possible with time. This proves to me that there is a universal fuel to sharing one's life in lines as it lives through you.
