Driving home from the airport with Luz last Thursday night, I had an unusual internal experience. Unusual for me, at least – maybe this happens to other people all the time (though I think I’d hear about it). We were driving north on 95, well into the northern suburbs; it was dark and I was poking along. Being the worrywart that I am, I started reviewing all the preparation I’d done for Luz’s arrival – especially that morning’s final “is everything in place?” inventory. That’s when the feeling hit me – the prep work happened in a previous lifetime. I’m not going all Shirley MacLaine here; what I mean is that in the hours between preparation and the drive north, my life shifted, jogged sideways, rolled slowly over a curb. I had a strong feeling of time racing by – my truck, tootling towards home, was not only moving through space, but also through time. “Well, duh”, saith you and “I know, I know”, I respond – but very rarely do I get the sense of time’s passage so concretely. I had an intense sensation of ‘the present’ being a membrane – or better yet, a shock wave – one moment thick and I was (and am) pinned to this surface translating the future, as it arrives, into my past by experiencing, sifting and storing. I’m sure there’s a name for what I experienced (“whoa, dude”, perhaps), and the Bo tree it wasn’t, but it was strong and – at least from where I sit – interesting.
