Time After Time
Friday night, we watched Footloose (1984) with our 13-year-old. My wife and I have both seen it, of course, but I hadn't seen it in 20+ years.
For the first time, I found myself identifying with the preacher as he began to understand his daughter (and himself). Instead of the rebellious kid in the center of the story, I was now the father, on the outside looking in.
But the weirdest thing of all was to realize: this movie is nearly 40 years old. Kevin Bacon is 66 years old; Lori Singer (the female lead) is 67. Sarah Jessica Parker, a youngster in the movie, is pushing 60. "I was an adult when it came out" I say to myself, not quite believing it.
No one tells you how time slips its bonds as you get older. It both compresses and expands, and when you see events you start to have thoughts like "oh yeah...I've seen that before." The striving in younger people leads to thoughts like "relax. It won't go the way you're thinking. Or it might. Either way it just won't matter much, believe me."
And younger people seem to keep getting younger. To them, a decade or two (or less) is their entire adult life. Every event seems Deeply Meaningful, but you know better. It's rarely meaningful, its impact rarely lasting. It just…is.
My daughter will only know the 20th century from books and media. That's another thing you realize: that so much of how people conceive the past is through media. They read a book or hear music or see a movie and think "ah, so that was the 80s".
But it wasn't, of course. It's like watching commercials and thinking they describe the movie that happened between them.
Imagine what it would be like to live for centuries. I wonder if a 500-year-old might begin to lose their grip on time altogether. As decades dissolve into centuries, people and events might feel like a book you misplaced years ago--you vaguely remember reading it, maybe it had a red cover (or was it blue?), and there was a rainstorm in it, or maybe snow. But the plot? No idea.
Remember that girl you met once, at the cafe? Yes, how could you forget her? But that was what--1970? 1980? 1910?
"No grandpa", a younger companion says. "It was 1795. She's been dead for over 200 years."
"Ah", you say. "It all runs together, like sidewalk chalk after a rain. I can't remember all the individual colors, but oh the feeling! I remember how it felt."