A western-born yogi by the name of Ram Das--nee Richard
Alpert, (Pre- LSD)--wrote a book, "Be Here Now." There may be some sense, even if just to the
title. In our minds, we can occupy time
quite different from the time experienced by our physical selves. Both memories
and anticipation can take us to places other than the present There are a couple of interesting novels
about persons who managed to think themselves corporally into other times, one
by the recently late Richard Matheson of “Somewhere in Time” fame. I doubt that
such time travel is possible, but our minds can make it seem as though we can
accomplish temporal displacement either by intent or by accident.
When we arrived in Chambéry just over a year ago, it was
next to impossible to feel that we were “here” as we found (and lost) our way
through and around town while understanding and speaking little of the
language. Time took a different sequence
and dimension, for we did not feel to be fully here and in the “now”.
Similarly, as we now prepare to return to the United States,
we feel out of step with the time and rhythm of our erstwhile home in France. We slowly fade as temporal “ghosts”, not so
much a part of the “now” as our minds and attention begin to be occupied more
by where we will be than where we are.
We begin to live in “other time.” We leave sooner in time than in body.
Each day we are more “there” than “here” as the words “tomorrow” and “next
week” no longer refer to us in Chambéry, but a not-yet-us in Colorado.
Soon, “tomorrow” will sprout and grow in Burkina
Faso as the familiar “good-byes” of family and friends become echoes in a
fading Colorado “now” replaced by the “hellos” of a temporarily unintelligible
new language in Africa.
