Gene's Blog

Possession and the Time Traveler’s Wife

“What is it? My Dear?”

“Ah, how can we bear it?”

“Bear what?”

“This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?”

“We can be quiet together, and pretend – since it is only the beginning – that we have all the time in the world.”

“And every day we shall have less. And then none.”

“Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?”

“No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.

–A. S. Byatt, Possession

I’ve been reading a novel lately, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, written in 2003 and in 2009 released as a marvelous movie starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. I wanted very much to see it when it was in theaters but somehow never got round to it. The quote above is from page 282 in her novel which marks the beginning of part II. I could not resist it since it is also the title of a song written by my favorite artist, Sarah McLachlan, and I believe I will go find it too.

I saw the movie first, I don’t normally like to do that, I am first and foremost a lover of reading, and I guess have often been disappointed when I have seen a movie and then read the book upon which it is based, at how much, so very much I find important to the story, was left out, or worse, changed in the film. I can’t say that with this duo. I love them both. The movie was, for me, as noted in my previous post, a half a kleenex box experience. I then went looking for the book and found both a Blu-ray Disc AND the book together for a mere $15. Needless to say, I bought both. I wanted first to savor the book and to this point, I have and am, very much, doing so. Had to stop reading the book on the bus though, people were giving me odd looks as I read with tears streaming down my face and nose running at full tilt. Not a pretty picture.

I left this in draft for a while, but now, I’ve finished the book and watched the movie again and was pleasantly amazed at how true to the story the movie was, but for the ending, I prefer the ending in the book very much, though the movie’s was sweet, the book’s ending was ever so much more poignant for me. It is a book I will read again, as I do often with favorites, and a movie I’ll watch again from time to time as well.

What comes to me from both is that we all share Henry’s condition in a way. Not that we skip back and forth through time, but that we are all first born outside of time, then descend into it, the relative universe to have our experience here as flesh-covered spirits. Now that is not quite the way CWG puts it, but it is the truth of us, from timelessness we come and to it we return. Not with the heartbreak Henry suffers as he moves through time because our beginning is in the light of the strongest love possible and it is to that love we return. No sad endings for us, no bittersweet memories, those are for this place, this universe our Creator gave us to experience life as we are not that we might love even more that which we truly are when we return from this brief stop in our soul’s life, for alive there we are, so much more than here. I “get” the attraction of what happens here and I understand its creation and purpose, but I’ve never felt comfortable in this shell, somehow I’ve always known this skin is not my own, that this place is not my home, even through the trials and tribulations and tears and love I’ve found and experienced here, I’ve no greater longing than for our true home. That may be unique to me as I know virtually all others will return, many times, and I know that I will not, this is a once only journey for me. Once is quite enough and I know that too. And, I remain perfectly okay with the choice of others to continue to come here, that won’t ever be taken away by our Creator, I am sure. But as much as I am homebody here, I am there too, in the place where we were born. Enjoy the journey, blessed be, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way

choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene