{"id":141,"date":"2011-07-11T23:21:17","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T06:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/blog\/?p=141"},"modified":"2012-05-18T13:35:59","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T20:35:59","slug":"time-travelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/time-travelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Time-traveling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe past is never dead. \u00a0It\u2019s not even past\u201d<\/em> \u00a0— William Faulkner<\/p>\n

What drives me to write is a desire to connect with other lives, to imagine and recreate them. \u00a0Sometimes, like you, I imagine my own self in former times, embellishing the experiences here and there for dramatic effect.\u00a0 My portals to the past are good music, certain artists, old buildings, certain books, travelling (by any means but particularly by water) and\u00a0 dreams. \u00a0I\u2019ve also discovered that a couple glasses of wine helps me slip through the wormhole with ease.<\/p>\n

Right now where I am in this<\/em> time, the sun is setting over the ocean, I\u2019m watching it from the sunroom with a glass of Kendall Jackson Private Reserve in my hand. \u00a0I\u2019m waiting for Bob to come home so we can make fish tacos and share the scraps of our day. \u00a0I just spoke with my grown son on the phone, and I\u2019m still feeling anguished over a problem he is facing.\u00a0 But a couple of months from now I won\u2019t remember the particulars of this day.<\/p>\n

I forget so much more than I remember — even the things I do remember somehow change.\u00a0 \u00a0I find that distressing, do you?<\/p>\n

If so, rest assured a couple of hundred years from now, long after you and I are dead, someone will remember this day for us.\u00a0 \u00a0Someone will recreate your day and mine, they will somehow capture the essence of it, pastiche a few details and share it with others. Maybe it will even be you and I <\/em>who does this, in different forms under different names. \u00a0OK, it\u2019s not near late enough to be having this conversation and I\u2019m not drunk enough, but the topic won\u2019t let me be.<\/p>\n

As a writer I am driven to try to capture the essence of people, some living, some long dead. \u00a0Or are they dead? \u00a0Have they ever lived? \u00a0They exist in my mind very clearly, I can tell you that.\u00a0 Maybe fictional people are as real as nonfictional ones. Maybe there are no fictional people.\u00a0 Have you ever read Sophie\u2019s World <\/em>by Jostein Gaarder<\/strong>? \u00a0If not, you must.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cI am large, I contain multitudes,\u201d writes Walt Whitman<\/strong>. \u00a0Maybe we are all the same person.\u00a0 This stuff drives me crazy!<\/p>\n

Anyway, people in different centuries are more alike than different. \u00a0It\u2019s the similarities that fascinate me more so than the differences. \u00a0In the first draft I\u2019m trying to capture what it is we have in common, what we all can relate to. \u00a0All of the historical details can be researched, fact checked, woven in, but the heart of the story is how we are alike, and that must be an integral, organic part. \u00a0You can\u2019t edit that in, it\u2019s like Voice. To find the beating heart of the story might require a little time travelling.<\/p>\n

And how to do that? \u00a0Maybe you already do it without knowing it. \u00a0You are already in that <\/em>time as well as this <\/em>time, as well as an infinite other times. \u00a0(I don\u2019t make this shit up, I have read Brian Greene<\/strong>, have you?)\u00a0 You see, it\u2019s all happening simultaneously but your awareness, your consciousness, is partitioned off from its other selves so you seem<\/em> to be only able to experience one moment in one life at one time.<\/p>\n

Do you see what I\u2019m burdened with here? \u00a0This is the kind of thinking that drives one to write, or drink. \u00a0Or both.\u00a0 Thank God, I hear Bob coming in the door. \u00a0Time to make fish tacos!\u00a0 Which I won\u2019t remember six months from now.\u00a0 But someday someone will, I\u2019m quite certain.<\/p>\n

.\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe past is never dead. \u00a0It\u2019s not even past\u201d \u00a0— […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[36,7],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddsnends","tag-time-travel","tag-writing-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}