Stars and a giant

I know you don’t want to. But I also know that you can’t help but wonder whether the contours of her face match yours. Oval. Round. Heart-shaped. Square. You know her hair must be blonde, or red, or perhaps brown--and that her eyes are probably light, or at least lighter. Her skin is certainly freckled, or maybe bronzed by the sun, or likely, pasty and translucent. Really, you have no idea, do you? I think she’s pretty. Not that it matters. And you do know, right? That there have been others besides?

That night that you traced constellations on his face, pressing your fingers gently from one eyebrow to the next and then up and across the curve of his forehead and back down along his chin, did you actually begin to see stars? I know what it’s like. I’ve been there myself. You feel so light and warm it’s like you could be planet-hopping--visiting soft, puffy lands where fat pixies spoon-feed you the gaudiest butterflies that even still are tussling in your stomach. But, now, the feeling isn’t so much light and warm as it is heavy and nervous, right? There’s been a certain sadness inside since he last said goodbye. I know that you tried not to feel like that, but I also know that you couldn’t help but get carried away and that you’d forget your feet and that you’d lose yourself amongst those stars. It’s like that with stargazing sometimes. You get so entranced that when you look back down again, you find your feet are at least a yard away from where you began, and even further away from where he was standing. And when you look back up at the stars, they seem different, don’t they?

When you finally turned off the light that night, your head wasn’t cradled in that shallow hollow between his shoulder and his chest the way you thought it would be, was it? Instead, your back was facing him. Your body, curled, small, and a little cold. His body, spread out across the rest of the bed--warm, comfortable, solitary. A giant could have been sleeping between you there was so much distance. Were you still seeing stars then? And if you were, was it their brightness that kept you up? Or was it something else? Was it the giant breathing down your neck? There’s a story, isn’t there, about a giant who plucks stars from the sky? Does he burn his hands when he touches them? Does it hurt? Does he flinch?

You told me that you told him that night, “You’ve touched me.” And I forgot to ask you whether he knew what you meant. Did he give you a funny look? Did you make a joke? Did you say, “I mean, yeah you did. Here and here.”

The giant, I remember now, didn’t want the stars in the sky at all, but those he saw reflected in a broad pool of dark water. He stooped down, so captivated. They were so much closer than those heavenly stars. And so he reached in, unsure of what it would feel like to touch a star; warm or sharp or delicate. He clutched at the water, but the star he thought to find solid in his fist disappeared and then suddenly it multiplied and scattered on those echoing, concentric waves left by his withdrawn arm. Those galloping stars--they made him feel both sad and giddy.

I know it doesn’t matter, but I know that you’re only thinking about her face because you’re wondering about your own--more curious than jealous. And everything's going to be okay, I think, because that giant gulf that you felt between you was actually a sympathizing friend.

Back to the future

Ours is a forward facing culture. And facing forward supposedly means moving forward, into the future, away from the past. Progress. No regrets. No baggage. The past holds us back. The future awaits.

But what if we have it backwards? What if the past awaits us? What if the future holds us back?

Today on Weekend Edition, Scott Simon interviewed linguistics professor, Ken Olson, about a recent study concerning the Aymara, an indigenous group from the Andean region whose concept of time might generate some rational musing on such otherwise cat-in-the-hat type philosophizing. According to the study, conducted by cognitive scientists Rafael Nuñez and Eve Sweetser, the Aymara conceive of the past as ahead of them or in front, while the future is behind them or in back. This concept manifests itself both linguistically (the Aymaran word “qhipa” means both back and future, and “nayra” means both front and past), as well as physically (Aymarans gesture behind them to refer to the future, and in front of them to refer to the past). In response to Simon’s request to help us understand how the Aymara see the world, Olson asked us to imagine looking out onto the landscape. What is in front of our eyes is what is known, as the past is known. What is behind remains unknown, as the future is unknown.

It’s a strange way of understanding time, especially for a culture so heavily invested in the jargon of “moving on,” “getting ahead,” and “facing forward,” as ours is. We fondly cherish our best memories, yet at the same time, we diligently try to put our pasts behind us. The past can hold us back. The past is over … done with. The past can turn us into sulky and lamenting pillars of salt. Ah woe is me.

I think that in most cases, our determination to look forward into the future is rooted in our desire to command that unknown entity of what might be. If we can predetermine or prefigure the future, then we can make the unknown something that is known, comfortable, and malleable. After all, the unknown is a scary thing … almost as scary as those questionable decisions, irrational actions, and stupid ideas that checker our pasts. But if we can manage to put our missed, hurtful, or unhappy pasts behind us, then we can flee at full speed into a future that is at our command. We can make our future selves better than our past selves by moving on, getting ahead, and facing forward. As long as we can put it behind us, our past becomes a learning experience. No regrets. No baggage. Progress. Growth. Drive. Maturity. Anything else and we’re moving backwards. Living in the past. Going in reverse. Stuck in a pattern. Repeating history. Ah woe is me.

Of course, such forward determination can sometimes, unconsciously, tinge our happy pasts with a sense of regret and sadness. We think, “It’s time I put that behind me” and “I must move on.” The future awaits. I can see it. Smell it. Taste it. And so we let go. Leave it behind. For better or for worse.

Ours is not a wholly terrible way of understanding the passage of time. If anything, it's familiar. We can’t exactly put ourselves into the mind’s shoes of the Aymara. Not in our culture. Not with our language. Not with the spontaneous and mechanical ways our arms move behind us to address yesterday’s events and ahead of us to imagine tomorrow's. But I do think that it might be worthwhile, sometimes, if we can manage it without getting too confused, too dizzy, to look ahead and see the past. And sometimes, to let the future rest, unknown, behind us.