The Book of Time

 "There's a headstone right in front of you

And everyone I know"

- Vampire Weekend, 'Don't Lie'

The passage of time is something that has long-fascinated me. It is deceptive in its simplicity. Some argue that "time" is a human construct. Perhaps how the concept of how we measure it is, but not time, itself. "Feet" and "inches" are simply contrivances of measurement, but there's no getting around that Person A, at what we term 6' 1" is taller than Person B at 5' 10". So it goes with time. "2021" is an identifier we created, but its placement in the continuum of time is certain.

I've mentioned before how time is like a book -- all of it is there, the difference is what page we happen to be on. If the entirety of time is equivalent to a 1,000 page book, the fact that we, in 2021, are on page 300 doesn't mean that page 990 doesn't exist, just like someone in 1944 being on page 275 doesn't mean that we on page 300 do not exist. It's all about when we exist, and what page we happen to be on. Call it perspective, if you will. Sometimes people bristle at this book/time analogy, as they think what I'm saying is that our lives are already written for us, and we have no free will. That is taking the analogy too literally. We write our own novel. All of us -- you, me, your grandmother, your friends -- are the authors.

It is true that the greatest separation we face is time. Theoretically, if any two people are live at the same time, they have the possibility of meeting. That possibility evaporates outside of overlapping lifespans. Now, I don't encourage trying to meet someone if they don't want to see you, or if it's a situation where you shouldn't see them (hence it being in theory). Nevertheless, technically speaking, the prospect is there. George Washington died almost two-hundred years before I was born. The probability of us ever meeting, even if I went to Mount Vernon tomorrow and occupied the same land and space that he did, is zero. What separates us? Time.

I was prompted to write this post by recently being reminded of the 2013 Doctor Who story, The Name of the Doctor. For the uninitiated, the title character is a time-traveler and, in the aforementioned episode, he ends up visiting his tomb. One may, at first, blanch at such a notion. One can never, usually, visit where one is buried or entombed, for obvious reason. Someone who travels in time, however, can certainly visit their remains. It's eerie, but it would, theoretically, be possible (within the fictional concept of time travel).

The Doctor Who story, along with my previously mentioned theory about how time works, got me to thinking how my own tomb is probably out there, somewhere, in time. It exists -- or will exist, from my current perspective -- just as certainly as the grave of, say, someone alive in the year 1612 was a certainty. Or, perhaps not a physical grave, but a final resting place of some sort, even if it's just where ashes were sprinkled. All of our resting places are out there, somewhere. We just can't co-exist with them, because we aren't fictional time travelers.

Twenty-four years ago, toward the end of my dad's life that he was losing to cancer, we were talking on the phone and he mentioned he'd visited the spot he'd selected for his grave. "It's nice out there," he said, referring to Camp Butler Cemetery. "I like it." That's probably the closest someone can come to visiting their own grave. I'm not sure I'd be able to do it, though who knows what strengths lie within us when called upon?

Now, much like George Washington, the timelines of my dad and I are out-of-sync. We shared the same measure of time for awhile, but its closure has now made further encounters impossible. I can, and do, visit my father's grave every so often, but of course it isn't the same as when we shared the same living timeframe from 1975 to 1997. A tomb, by definition, is devoid of life -- or at least the life of its occupant.

The Doctor's tomb was on the planet Trenzalore. I wonder where mine will be? I definitely want to be cremated (no slow decay in the ground for me), but the question of what becomes of my ashes is one currently without an answer. Of course, my remains are out there, on some future page of the book, their disposition decided between now and then, either by myself, or a loved one.