Seer page 14

TIME

After you quit being stupid and learn to read, you notice you are very stupid with time. Sometime around age 2-5, Mommy and Daddy and School and Church, ALL have clocks and time that confuse you, and all try to show you how to read a clock. A smart girl like you that could read at 1, should certainly be able to tell time, so stop being stupid and pay attention. But you never really master this skill. You never learn to like wearing a watch. And even when you are in high school, and in Spanish class, you do very poorly, because one of the first things you learn in Spanish is how to tell time in Spanish, and the test papers always have drawings of clocks, and only a few pictures of digital-clocks that just TELL you what the time is in ENGLISH. And no one will believe that a fourteen year old girl can’t tell time, and think that you must just not know the Spanish, and are making excuses. But actually, you are just stupid when it comes to clocks and telling time. And this is a very big theme throughout your life.

And before you are introduced to clocks, you are mostly always happy.

(And when you break all the clocks, you will be happy again.)


But today is not time yet, so today is: Mommy has a giant hourglass.

It is as big as you are, but still below Mommy’s hip. And you love to watch all that sand pour and pour, and flip over and pour again. Like a figure 8 that spins. You love to spin. Especially in the chair by the window, but you cracked your chin open doing that, and it bled a lot. But the hourglass is a nice, safe, spin, because it is so slow.

And I can stop time! Or at least the sand. But, when the sand stops, the second hand on the clock still ticks, and I don’t understand that. But I think if may be I was small enough to fit inside the hourglass completely, and I had the clock in my hand, like a wristwatch, I bet that watch WOULD stop. And also, I can not make time go backward when I flip it over, even if I do it very fast, or before it is all the way done. The time still just goes forward and not back and forth like a seesaw, like it should.

But you still think about the space INSIDE the glass, and if, IT is going backwards inside the glass, and only forwards on the outside where you are. And you suspect that other clock is getting in the way, but Mommy will not take the hourglass outside, and it is too big and heavy for you to carry by yourself.

Later she gets 2 smaller hourglasses. I like to play with them too, and I hope that Mommy will collect LOTS of hourglasses, but… she does not. And she seems to be bored of hourglasses now, so maybe it was just a phase, because now Mommy wants an Atlas statue instead of another hourglass. (But later, she will get a melted-looking clock like Dali drew, and you will love that almost as much as hourglasses.)

And here is the important thing to know about statues--- I am the statue of The Thinker. I sit. I ponder. (But Daddy says— No, that is Dobie Gillis’s statue, which is a character on an old black and white T.V. show called The many loves of Dobie Gillis that they play on Nick at Night, but for real… it is MINE too.) I rest my chin on my fist and THINK.

But not everyone has the same statue. And you can really learn a lot about someone by what statue they think of themselves as. Like Mommy, she likes the statue of Atlas. But NOT a triumphant or happy kind of Atlas—just the sad one of Atlas being crushed down by the heavy world on his shoulders, the one where he is struggling, and looks like his legs are going to give out any second, but they don’t, because he is a statue, so he is trapped and frozen in that last second of crushing pain. And Mommy says she LOVES that statue because Atlas looks exactly how Mommy feels, and you are in middle or high school when she tells you that last part, the WHY she loves Atlas, and it makes you feel very sad for Mommy.

And you think they should make Atlas with a removable world, so sometimes you could lift the world off, and turn him upside-down on his head, and let him do a handstand for a while… Or make an Atlas that twirls the world on one finger like a basketball… or something.

(And this is why you read Atlas Shrugged later in life, because it has such an interesting title, but in that book, Atlas shrugs with indifference or apathy or even hatred for the world, because he shrugs so that the world will FALL and DIE because he is tired of holding those stupid losers up.)

But back at 2-8 age, you are just thinking that Atlas is not in any real danger of being crushed, because the world is surrounded by so much SPACE, his legs would just be floating along behind the earth, because, what could he be standing ON? The Moon? An invisible planet? You don't think holding the world would be too much trouble with zero gravity to help you.

But. You DO worry that the earth will float away from Atlas...

and he will be left behind.

All alone. In all that space.

Which came first? Egg the Chicken on.

i feel thoughtful.

i have been thinking about this dream, a dream that wasn't even mine, but i was in it. and i had this feeling that real life was going to end like the dream. and it just did.

so when that first struck me, 10 minutes ago, i wondered if i caused it to happen because i had been feeling anxious/suspicious about the dream to begin with... but i am pretty sure i would have reacted the same as i did regardless.

so i am thinking about winning and losing, backing down, saving face, etc.

i would rather be right than happy.

now, i can see that that's idiotic... because logically, if i am UNhappy, then i am losing anyway, right? i don't know why i persist in this. but i know it to be true about myself. i have my own strange rules about things and my own definitions of WINNING. maybe it's a dissociating thing because i feel perfectly calm, not sad, just calm. but i know that yesterday i would have been sad.

i like things to be black and white, clear cut. ultimatums are things that are easy. you ask a question, someone gives you an answer...

i end a lot of arguments with, "Fine. You can win then."

i guess i just don't count my own loss all the time. if we BOTH lose, then i still feel ok. apparently, i would make an excellent suicide bomber.