REFLECTIONS: The Book Club Reflection: ' The TIme Traveler's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger

THE LONGING OF THE ONE
ALWAYS LEFT BEHIND
TIME IN
TIME OUT

‘Writing is a private thing,
it’s boring to watch
and my loved ones
are left behind,’
said Audrey Niffenegger:
‘ It’s pleasures
tend to be most intense
for me…’

And for us…
Following her story
filled with strangeness
and slight changes
in the rules of the universe
yet recognizable
for her characters
are real people
who struggle
to lead normal lives.

Page One:
Clare talks to Henry:
‘It’s hard to be the one,
who stays,
it’s hard to be left
alone..’
Henry responds:
‘Imagine,
how does it feel
to leave
everything you know
behind?’

THE LONGING OF THE ONE
ALWAYS DISPLACED BY A WHIM OF TIME
TIME IN
TIME OUT

It only takes
an instant
just enough time
to try to hold on
to flail around
and then
YOU ARE OUT THERE
IN TIME
No clothes, no money, no ID.
You appear from nowhere,
naked.
How can you explain?

THE LONGING OF THE MAN
OUT OF TIME
ALL HE ASKS FOR
ARE HUMBLE DELIGHTS
OF DOMESTICITY
BECAUSE TRULY
BEING HERE
IS SO MUCH…

The story starts in 1968
‘A first time for everything’
Henry travels back in time,
He is five.

It is a day like on other.
The photons from the sun
reach our atmosphere
and then something blue happens
our sky.

By creating day,
and in it’s absence
beneath the horizon,
Sun is the giver of life,
the giver of TIME.
We celebrate the return of sun
to the same place it was
when we were born and call it
our Birthday.

Today is Henry’s TIME.
Sun – an invitation to life
Henry – a time traveler
to the past or future
to a time or a place
of importance in his life.
Sun and Henry,
they are always back,
time in, time out.

Everything seems simple,
until you think about it.
Each moment
is slow and transparent
as glass
if you have a chance
to revisit your past,
or your future.

Everything we notice,
a thought, sensation or emotion,
comes wrapped up with a feeling
and an evaluation.
But we have no chance of ever
seeing anything
‘just as it is.’
Henry comes back,
with the enlightened eye
of a disinterested observer
he can see…
his past, his present and his future
with a perfect objectivity.

The story continues in 1977
‘ The first date’
Henry is thirty-six
and Clare just six year old.
He appears naked,
straightens his shaky legs,
proudly raises his unshaven chin
and turns his cloudy eyes
on her:
‘ Appearance can be deceptive,
please help me,
I am just a seasoned traveler.’

We instinctively pull away
from what we see as a threat
and move towards
what we see as a reward.
Henry is wild and austere
and Clare just an innocent child,
choked off by a cosseted upbringing.
They take a picnic
up to an hidden grassy area,
a life secretly shared
by two people from opposite ends of time.
They are so much opposite,
they come around
and touch on the other side!

‘The First Date’ repeats in 1991
Henry is twenty-eight,
Clare twenty.
Love is only the beginning,
companionship was the start.
Two people looking for each other
wandering
“What is it missing from my life?”
Nothing can undo the wrong
we have endured throughout our lives.
“ I am trying to live without either hope or fears,”
explains Henry,
was a schoolboy when imprisoned first time
for gross indecency.
By the end,
Clare had tears streaming down her face.
“I have always had the daydream of having a space
where I’ll be surrounded by beautiful things
and YOU by my side all day.”
Clare whispers:
“And you are back in my life,
what a wonderful surprise.”
The next day,
she left the work,
walked quickly to her car
and headed for home,
full of beautiful things
and Henry …
Nearby was a naked street walker,
feeling his way along the fence,
as she roared past,
she caught a glimpse of his startled eyes,
his emaciated face…
Henry,
but there was no sight of him
any more,
She drove out of town
and didn’t stop
until she reached home,
full of beautiful things
but no Henry by her side.
END OF INNOCENCE;
LIFE BEGINS…

Life is a continuing struggle
we are deeply committed
to survive…
time in, time out
waiting
patiently waiting
for better TIMES.

“ If you are IN TIME,
not knowing…
you are FREE,
trust me.”
Henry said to Clare in 1995.
He comes back in the middle of the night
from his time travel to the past
visiting the car accident
he survived
26 years ago,
the car accident,
where his Mother died:
“ Things happen once,
only once,
knowing about them in advance…”
Henry stops suddenly,
thinking about the future,
when Clare’s Mum
dies in 1998,
from cancer:
“ does not change a thing,
accusation only runs forward,
you feel trapped,
most of the TME.”

.
Henry’s tireless fascination
with the minutiae of life
helps him remains
in the moment,
yet ahead of pack.
Never keeping still,
constantly exploring
all the possibilities
of contrasts and extremes,
diametrically opposed experiences
keeps Henry energized
to seek out
what is at the edge of life.
Sometimes it is good…
Most of the time
he really misses Clare
and wonder what could have been,
if he was
IN THE HERE and NOW
all the time.
He knows that:
HIS TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

The rushing against the time
speeds the aging process,
we are all terminal,
no one escapes THE TIME.

Deciding good or bad
is integral part of our perception
we prefer eating to not eating,
stimulation to boredom,
but nothing is automatically good in itself.
Even water is potentially lethal
if taken in excess.
Yet it goes against the grain
to realize
that too much of good things
are fatal.
How to find the perfect balance?

Our bodies are always working
to maintain an ideal
between whole range of opposites
the sleep-wake cycle
then tension-relaxation of muscles
the acidity-alkanity of blood
just few minutes of
dangerously low blood pressure
to brain
and we are dead.
Stress is bad for us
but it may take years
before it strikes us down.
We don’t need to be ‘time travelers’
to know our time is running out.

And yet we don’t know
how out of balance
we can afford to be
what TIME really means
in our non-stop
over-stimulated societies.
A dreadful waste time
is our daily threat
What if
we had an abundance of TIME
lying half awake in bed
to contemplate
and make sense of our lives
before it is too late.

In 1996 his DNA is checked
for the special gene, that defy the rules of time.
Henry tells the doctor everything:
The beginning,
the learning,
the rush of surviving,
the pleasure of knowing ahead,
the terror of knowing things
that can’t be averted,
the anguish of loss,
the silence of death approaching…
The doctor listens,
facing the classic physician’s dilemma:
“ How do I treat this patient without killing him in advance?”
Scientists mapped the human genome,
today they build the first synthetic life.
Science fiction is science,
the future means progress,
but the humans are the ones
where the trouble really lies.

THE LONGING OF THE ONE
ALWAYS DISPLACED BY A WHIM OF TIME
TIME IN
TIME OUT

THE LONGING OF THE ONE
ALWAYS LEFT BEHIND
TIME IN
TIME OUT

In 2000 they continue in their married life,
an extended essay in love
muddled by mundane everyday disagreements,
time restrictions
and limits of human connections.

Miscarriages are difficult to talk about.
In the midst of grief
bereaved parents
often encounter
embarrassed reactions
to their plight.
Clare’s immense grief
it was the HERE AND NOW
they did not want to be…
a deep pain which will soften…
until it is time to try over again…

Happiness is better than despair
but life consists of sadness too
It has its own depth,
its own delicacy,
its own taste.
A man
who has not known
sadness
is shallow
Even his laughter will lack depth.

In 2002 their daughter Alba
was born
love without walls
love without limits of time
love with open arms
another ‘time traveler’
trying to reach for an infinity of stars.

NOW is her time,
Alba starts
her first steps
the most interesting journey of her life…
She is more independent ‘time traveler’
empowered with free will,
ready to choose a middle path.

Clare watches her in awe
waiting,
waiting patiently for HIS return.
Being,
always being
a soft place
For Henry
to land
time after time,
until his last.

In 2006 Henry looses his feet,
shivering, white and cold
appears from his past…
He leaves hospital
in a wheelchair,
neither manhood nor future,
continues living on a borrowed TIME.
In 2006 Henry dies.

A cycle of the moon
defines the month.
When the full moon rises,
hunters walk out into the night
and see it alive
with animals and birds,
they shoot and kill.
Henry was in their path.
Moonlight is a nighttime concert,
a time of its own..
The change of the moon phases
marks out the feminine cycle,
Clare waits patiently
for Henry to die at home.

Finally he comes.

The stillness of dying
a fleeting moment
we want to last forever
going back to what is it
we want to leave behind

Too much living in the light
can dazzle and deceive us.
Too much past or too much future
to live all over again
can be self-defeating
Living NOW and only NOW
enable us to respond
to life
and the world
as it is
without the complicating hazards
of times between.

SUN AND MOON
TWO DIFFERENT INVITATIONS TO LIFE
THEY ARE ALWAYS BACK
TIME IN; TIME OUT
NO SIGHT OF A ‘TIME TRAVELER’ AROUND

At the end of our time,
we are left,
old, alone and blind
to lost opportunities in life…
there is only one thing left to do…
we wait
to feel
for one LAST MOMENT
the tenderness of love…