Time—It Will Pass

Here’s something I do. I guess you’d call it a habit. I often find I have excess time; what this does is create the feeling of luxury, as if I have all the time in the world. What this does, is causes me to dawdle. And then before I know it, I’m late.

I’ll be on my way somewhere and notice that I’m going to be there 10 to fifteen minutes early and so I decide to go do something else, something that takes 20-25 minutes.

There’s an old saying, it’s rather coarse, but so am I--trying to cram 20 pounds of crap in a ten pound bag. This could be my my epitaph: Here lies Chris Wells, he tried to cram 20 pounds of crap into a ten pound bag. Rest in Peace.

In cinema, there’s a device called the Vertigo Effect, originally developed for Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller, it’s a visual trick achieved by zooming in on a subject as the camera is being pulled back.

This is often how I experience time. I’m looking at something—a task or a goal, and as I study it, it stretches away from me, but instead of losing sight of the thing, I begin to see it more clearly. I think this effect can also lead to regret—why didn’t I start earlier? Plan ahead?

It’s also called a dolly shot, because camera is pulled back on a dolly. It’s used a lot in scary movies—there’s a great example in Poltergeist, when the hallway begins stretching out before JoBeth Williams.

In my relationship to time, the distortion also works the other way. I’ll see what time it is and think, “there’s no way I have enough time to do that,” but when I try, I find that it didn’t take hardly any time at all.

Movies are a huge part of my life—in therapy, when describing something traumatic, my shrink asks me to close my eyes and go inside and track what happens in my body, what I see is almost always cinematic. A short while later, I’ll open my eyes and say, “Did you ever see The Celebration?” Or, “You know the ending of Thelma and Louise?” Or, “I’m embarrassed to say but I saw the opening sequence of Lion King…” last week it was Pinnochio—not terribly subtle imagery there. I’m the boy who lies!

Movies help me deal with time—watching a visual story with sequenced images, this calms me. These modern day myths, give my life meaning. A montage gives me hope, reminds me that sometimes time is cut together, overlapping, like a shopping spree or fixing up an old house. Opening shots remind me to take care with the beginnings of things. And the long shot, seeing myself as the hero in my own film, in the middle of a prairie or on a rock above a wide open desert vista. Where is he going today?

These days time is stranger than ever—it’s the time of the great drift, like being on a ship on a turbulent sea, you keep dancing but the huge waves make it hard to keep your rhythm, to land the steps. Like the Poseidon Adventure, which was the scariest movie in the word when I saw it as a kid…the cruise ship is suddenly swept up in a horrible storm, carried way up high and everyone inside slides one way, then the boat comes way down, and everyone slides the other way. People hang from chandeliers. Screaming.

I like imagining you all at home skidding across your floors, hanging from your lighting fixtures. I hope you’re not drowning, of course, or screaming—not too much, anyway.

Several years ago I got vertigo—it made it hard to walk without falling over, the strangest sensation, was waking up and feeling like my head was falling back, over the pillow, as if I was going to slide all the way behind the bed.

I went to see an ear, nose and throat doctor in Murray Hill, getting off the elevator, the hallway did that thing, the never ending stretch, I ran my hand along the wall so I could make it to the office…the doctor was young, attractive with a thick, beautiful accent. She was blond, and now that I think of it, could have easily passed for a Hitchcock heroine.

Her manner was coarse but I trusted her. I longed for a prescription, an answer to my strange and sudden problem, but at the end of the examination all she would say is, “inner ear.” All she could give me was, “It will pass.”

It will pass. Like everything. The movie will end. The lights will come up. You’ll wipe the popcorn off your belly and leave the theater. Making your way to your car will be like waking up and trying to hold onto the dream you just had.

Driving home you’ll look at the clock, how late it got, how time passed. Wasn’t it just evening? Doesn’t this morning seem like a week ago? Doesn’t yesterday feel like forever?