About Time
We watched a movie last weekend called "About Time" with Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy (who is the very definition of a bon vivant, is he not?). It only gets 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, which feels criminally low to me. It's a sweet movie in which the men of the family have the ability to time travel, so we see Domhnall's character time travel, primarily to get do-overs to fix his awkward dating mistakes and make sure he gets the girl of his dreams. But there's a very poignant moment (spoiler alert!) toward the end where Bill Nighy, the father, has terminal cancer and reveals to his son that he has used his time travel to relive every day twice since getting his cancer diagnosis. Once to live it however it goes, and the second time to relive it and make it the best possible day. His son, we see at the end of the movie, does the same for awhile, and then eventually simply chooses to live each day full of gratitude, without the need for do-overs.
Perhaps you have to be a little older to truly appreciate what this movie is offering about how we choose to spend our days and our energy.
As I've been working through some grief this year, I have found myself searching for some guidance on mindfulness, making peace with things I can't change, and giving thanks for what I have. I started by reading a couple of books by Thich Nhat Hahn, and taking some mindfulness sessions with a wonderful instructor. I read (fellow Hoosier) Kurt Vonnegut's collected commencement speeches ("If This Isn't Nice, What Is? Advice for the Young") where he shares:
One of the things [Uncle Alex] found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when they were happy. He himself did his best to acknowledge it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
At Uncle Alex's encouragement, I work harder at noticing.
I have run across many other helpful examples and reminders along the way including "These Are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs, which I hadn't heard in a very long time, Do Ho Suh's Memory of Love - among the many powerful and moving works he has created about memory - and (although I am not religious) both the Serenity Prayer, and the Proverb that we are not promised a tomorrow. "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring."
I don't have anything revelatory or insightful to say here. I'm just noting the journey to get through a difficult time, and the opportunity to notice helpful sign posts and benches for taking a rest and appreciating the view along the way.
