minute hand, millenium hand and an eon hand

Is it possible that I have some kind of homing beacon inside me? Because now, for two weeks in a row, two different people have decided that it is perfectly acceptable to sit right next to me after walking into a completely empty room. If this happens again next week, I might have to quit the class. Okay, I am not really going to quit a class because my personal space is constantly invaded. Maybe I should just stop wearing deodorant.

Well, that very likely grossed out anyone still reading. Yesterday was a very odd weather day for the city. Thunder, lightning, and a sprinkle of rain are highly unusual in September in the Bay Area. By the time I was getting to class, the rain had just stopped. Smell is supposed to be a sense very deeply connected to memory. Yesterday, I became a believer- when I stepped out onto the sidewalk, a flood of the past overwhelmed me. There are times that this happens, and I start to believe time has more than one dimension. Something about the warmth of the air, the humidity, and the smell of the asphalt and moist earth, that smell that seems to make everything fresh again- something about all of it made me feel like every step turned me into someone else. At one step, I was me, at the next I was me at nine, waiting for the schoolbus. In the next step, I was me again, but with one more step I was me at nineteen, walking along the Charles River. Each step, I was someone else, different versions of me, in different places, different times. Maybe I need to ease up on the caffeine.

E used to say that, when he had trouble falling asleep, he closed his eyes and pictured himself in his room. Then he zoomed out and he was looking out above his house. Then he zoomed out again, and he was looking over the whole city. Then he zoomed out again, and he was looking at the whole planet. On and on, until he could no longer see himself even as a speck, so small was he in the vastness of the universe. And he felt quite at peace after that.

I find comfort from the two extremes. I think of a person, and then I think of all of the body parts that make up a person, how all the organs need to work in perfect harmony together for something as fundamental as breathing to continue. Then I think of all the cells that make up each of these organs. And then there is, within the cells, the complex machinery of proteins and molecules and carefully orchestrated interactions that must happen just so to maintain a body's current state of being. It feels like a work of art.

But on the other hand, I think of the timescale in the opposite direction. I think of this fury of activity that is going on inside the body every day at the cellular level. And then I think of the bustle of daily life, which seems very busy, but quite pales in comparison to those frenzied molecules. Then I think of a lifespan, which seems very long. But then I think of how long humans have been around, and a lifespan feels very short. And I think of how long archaebacteria have been around. And I consider how long it has been since life first started on this planet. I think of the timescale of evolution, and how change happens at such a slow pace. And it feels like I’m that tiny thing like E.

I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to know both- I need to know that my life and what I make of it is very important and I need to know that I am ultimately insignificant in the face of the larger picture. Perhaps some people need their life to feel one way or the other. But I like that balance.

I didn't realize it until I finished writing this, but I must acknowledge that these two posts triggered much of what I wrote today, so blame them, just as you might blame Eddie Vedder for Scott Stapp. Funny, the effects of the blogosphere.