henry

As I was showering this morning, I found myself where I usually find myself when I'm thinking about myself. That is, I ended up floating in third person omniscient, and while this could very well be a case for depersonalization, I feel that I'm simply exercising a product of consciousness. That being said, when I was examining myself and the status I am at and the identity I have carved out for myself, it struck me that I reminded myself of someone I knew. Of course, he's a fictional character, but I found myself sympathizing with Henry DeTamble (omg just a moment, that was SO cool he has his own myspace!) from Time Traveller's Wife.

Audrey Niffenegger puts Henry down as a modern age Pheidippides in a time-travelling, punk-loving, Rilke-quoting librarian body (with a casual attitude toward opoids as an added twist). Okay, so let's analyze this: I don't time travel I don't listen to punk I don't read Rilke I don't do drugs I am not a librarian. So then what is it about Henry that I associate with?

How lovely process of elimination is. Niffenegger uses this consistent metaphor throughout the book of Henry running, running, running. He's always behind, as if he is chasing everything: "Had we but world enough, and time...". Let us superimpose this upon me, and we find that I too am running, running, running. I too am behind, I too chase everything, Mr. DeTamble: "But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near". We are old friends with Mr. Rabbit and his pocketwatch, with Salvador Dalí and his melting clocks, with JT and Madonna as they count down four minutes and nothing more.

As Mrs. Jones says, "Ain't no time two people staring at each other, or standing still, loving both with their eyes are equal." She then pauses a moment, then remarks, "Who's chasing?" The answer is here: I am chasing the world, I am chasing time and I am chasing myself. I am always chasing, because there are always places to be and I cannot run as fast as you, Edward Cullen. I am chasing the money to afford a mortgage, a family, a puppy. I am chasing health so that one day we may live in said house and live till we are both old and happily confused. I am scrambling after knowledge which seems to elude me as my friends and colleagues get their acceptance letters to medicine, law, Julliard. I struggle behind those before me who have scraped out a path towards opera, to photography, to friendship, to physical affection, to paintball, to strength, to motivation and being the best you can be.

You see, I run in all directions, yet at the same time find myself traversing to no point. I am Zeno's paradox in human form. I am relative to everything, yet absolute to nothing.

Or am I?

What I forgot, is that I am also chasing love. It is the first of my priorities, yet at the same time it is the last thing to reach on my list. Why? Because when I get all these things I am chasing, I want to bring them to the most important thing I am chasing, which is you my love, so that you can see that I have traversed the whole world, through barriers and space and time to bring you these things I have chased for and to share them with you. I want only just to stand next to you with these so that I am absolute, corporeal, tangible. You and I, superimposed as a single point, a fixed entity, so that people can regale, "There they are, not chasing anymore, because they are together." You and I drawing the line that is our future, together from Point A to Point B. Eluding everything because now that we are together with everything we have ever wanted, now that you and I are comfortable and I have foreseen to bringing you everything you could ever wish for, now that I have fulfilled my role as your soulmate and soon-to-be-husband, everyone will be chasing us.

Though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.