A Lifeboat On The Ocean Of Time

Embracing the past and facing the future

This week, a short contemplation on the delicate relationship we all have with the past, and coming to terms with facing the future.

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Photo by Lachlan Gowen on Unsplash

1.

Do you remember the time when you leant into the realm of possibility? Way back when all that’s happened has yet to occur? Remember when you were awash with vertigo, peering into the deep blue future, from the diving tower of youth?

On occasions, I find myself transported back to that world of the past that never ages and never changes. Unlike me.

I’ll get stuck fast in the amber of time like an imprisoned jewel, undulating between truth and fiction, between memory palace and memory prison. It’s dangerous stuff, renovating memories from the remnants of recollection. Especially when there are certain glistening polished narratives that come barging to the front, embolden by their frequent retelling, elbowing themselves toward me, let us through for we are indisputable.

Sometimes the past beckons me, hand in hand with that snake-oil seller the imagination, accompanied by a flock of beguiling emotions, and together they nonchalantly demand that I pay homage and bow down to all that has been, claiming I can never escape, that I am formed by the hand’s of bygone days, like human clay.

Every now and then, I’ll acquiesce and allow the past to bully me. And from time to time I’ll stand my ground and instead of being browbeaten I’ll look future-wards, away from all that has been, and forge ahead as I turn away from the unceasing theatre of me.

And other times, when I feel the strength, when I’m possessed with a calm, clear vision, I’ll turn toward the past and with arms outstretched, I’ll beckon back: come on then, let’s have a look at ya, show me what your made of, give me your best shot.

And then the past will come like a tsunami and I’ll struggle to keep my balance on this churning ocean of reminiscence, struggle not to be drowned by the flood of memories. And I’ll face up to each in turn, and attend to those memories that may or may not have been, or should not have been, or merely were as they were, and I’ll not caress or chastise or forgive or be grateful, I’ll just let those memories wash over me as they are, for that is just the way of things.

2.

I read the note twice and only the second time did I realise the words were sharp and shrill, “We are at the Spencer’s,” was all it said, but it was enough.

I had run beneath the ornamental gum and umbrella trees to the veranda of the Spencer’s house, and rapped my small knuckles on the door as lightly as a bird hip hopping across the road. As I stood and listened to the simple sounds of the cooling evening, I felt the puzzling furtive stirrings of panic, my own gently hastening heartbeat delivering the quietest and faintest whispers of warning.

And then the door was open and there before me was a shipwreck on the patterned carpet, my mother’s hair streaking down her wet face, arms outstretched toward me, on one knee, my sister too, shaking and dazed, tears upon tears glazed her face like a sticky bun as she turned this way and that, her small fingers grappling and clenching.

Above this scene, peering around the door, was the floating head of Mrs. Spencer, trying as she might to smile and appear reassuring, as the remains of my family broke apart in her hallway and sank forever into the depths of my memory. Mrs. Spencer reached around and took me by the shoulder and pulled me into the house as she peered out into the street, anxious to gently close the door and bolt it.

Then, a memory lapse, like dozing off in the theatre and waking to find the plot has pressed on regardless. I am being pulled by strong hands into a car with male voices speaking heavily and then I’m in my home, and there stands my brother, ashen and confused and I am now shouting that I can fix this, that I will make this right and I am running out the door again and I run toward the shipwreck with a certainty that I am a life boat and all will be well.

3.

This haunting recollection, embedded like shrapnel in my memory, of a family exploding, never to be made whole again, had the power to leave me as bewildered as I was that fateful day when I couldn’t be a lifeboat because the weight of it all would sink me, as I was just a boy.

They come, these memories, to manhandle me, as if they’re terrified I might forget them, and become somebody else. As if I might abandon them. They come like anchors and try to chain me in the flow of time, which forever rushes past. But they cannot hold me. They must not hold me. For if they do, they will try to force me to forever face the wake, as if it were the view from the stern of life that should decide the direction of the bow.

On some days, when I think of that small boy who ran from house to house, from one life to another, convinced he could take all the broken pieces and make them whole again, that child, who spent a lifetime trying to fix the unfixable, on some days I try to ignore him, to forgive him, to deny him or to befriend him, as he runs forever in his amber prison, forever torn apart by that savage day, forever running toward a sinking ship, but it is no use. And on those days it is better to turn away and let him be.

And on other days, I might beckon him forth, from the wake of time, and pull him dripping onto the decking of today, and dry him off and put a blanket around him. And then, we sit together, that boy and I, and just be. And I look at him, but he cannot look at me because such is the way of things, and I put my arm around him and point toward the future and I say “We’re heading this way,” and I think he looks there too, for a moment, and I say, “you helped me to reach this place, here,” and he seems to look at me, quizzically, and I smile and maybe he smiles too, before he slips once again into the flow of time, and I wish I could let him know, but I can’t, because such is the way of things.

And then he is gone again, but never really gone, and I move on, as if, finally, a lifeboat has appeared on this ocean of time, and I am saved.