2005.07.01 Perceptual Eras
Time is often divided up into perceptual eras. General history is usually segmented by what wars were being fought, and this is also true for personal histories. Except instead of international conflicts, our personal histories are marked by the kinds of personal battles we experienced - jobs, relationships, dwellings, and the like.
It's true - just think about how almost every single anecdote starts with some qualification about, "Back when I was flying F-16's in the First Gulf War..." or "When I lived in the belfry at Notre Dame..." or "When I dated that fish-hearted bitch that ruined my life..." or whatever. It all tends to coalesce into one deterministic era or another. Perhaps it's because we need these kinds of definitions for understanding the continuous string of experiences that gets woven into each of our lives. Without these frames to block out all the endless preamble and aftermath, we lose the ability to resolve specifics, and are only left with the trivally true.
Although, this isn't exactly so for children. For most kids in western culture, life is segmented into grades. Yet, in between these grades is the eternal summer - the time not in any grade. You can try to specify the summer by noting which grades the summer is supposedly between, but I think that most people will tell you that the summers actually tend to blur together. To those kids playing tag in the park, it's just summertime, not school. It isn't until later in life that the true magical summertimes contract, and they along with grades are replaced by other kinds of finely distinguished eras.
Yet, here I am, in-between eras. A brief rediscovery of summertime, as it used to be - with all its magical un-time.
Behind me lie the ending of a couple important concurrent eras: my job as an Applications Engineer, and my living arrangement with S. It really has been something of a golden age, and I was fortunate enough to realize it to properly appreciate it. But it was like a sunny dell on a hill, too small to dwell in forever, and my intended path takes me to the mountain. So now I've stepped into the shadows of the forest, unsure of where I'll actually wind up.
Ahead lie the beginnings of exciting and frightening new eras: my new job as a Senior Design Engineer, and a long-distance relationship with S. Both of these are going to be difficult for a while, but both also promise to possibly end up being everything I've hoped for in these realms. It will be hard and humbling in my new job, as I'll no longer be the department guru, and I'll have to struggle to become useful with training and experience. However, I fully intend to reclaim my guru status, and finally be able to flex my creative design muscle. Even more difficult will be having S so far away for a year. It's sad enough whenever she's out of physical reach, but I will sorely miss her company and miss sharing every day, and the comfortable ease of sharing the same space. When she's done her internship, though, I hope that we'll find a way to be together, and stay together.
But, at the moment, I'm in neither era. Those which are past are already gone, and those to come have yet to arrive. It won't be long before the next era asserts itself, though. Before it does, this special in-between time is the best time to do magical things. I keep suspecting a pixie or faerie to dart by, but there are magical things that abound in more subtle ways. Like holding hands while watching light dance on the water, or staying in bed late in the morning to lounge and read. Like Watterson knew, the days are just packed.