Welcome back! As you can see, we’re not in the lab today. We’re standing outside the Good Shepherd Center in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.
Much has happened over the past month, so we’ll need to catch up on a few things. Let’s go inside. I want to take you up to The Chapel Space, where we can have a good talk. Come on—this way—to the elevator. This place was built in 1906 as a Catholic Home and School for wayward girls. The phrase “wayward girl” is likely the cause for all the rumors. For years, the rumor was that this place was a home for unwed mothers. The girls would come here during their pregnancies, give birth, then hand over their babies to Catholic Charities for adoption. By all historical accounts, that is a complete fabrication. There doesn’t seem to be any record of the Good Shepherd being a home for unwed mothers. I think wayward meant troubled, rebellious or cast off.
Here we are now. The fourth floor. Right this way. This space used to be the chapel, but now it’s used as a performance space. Look at all these stained-glass windows. Aren’t they beautiful? The light coming through these windows—it’s, it’s magnificent. The effect of the refracted sunlight shining through gives everything in the room a heavenly golden glow. Of course—as magnificent as they are—the stained glass makes it impossible to see anything outside this room. Once we shut these big doors, we’re cut off from the visuals of the outside world.
There—I’ve shut the doors.
I’ve setup a little place for us to talk—over here. Please take a seat.
First things first—I need to apologize for putting you in such an awkward circumstance last month. I asked you to stay so I wouldn’t have to be alone with my time-traveling older self. I now know that in that moment—when she so dramatically announced her presence, and I turned to look at her—she passed you a note asking you to leave. Once again, I’m sorry to have put you in that situation.
Moving on—I want to share some of the content of my conversation with my older self. But, before that, I think we should dive into the topic for today: Why People Love Time Travel.
I have a hypothesis that I feel could account for the popularity of time travel storytelling. Before I lay out my theory, I have some observations about time travel I’d like to share as a sort of predicate to my thesis. People are not linear in the way they think—I mean to say, in the manner that our minds move about the business of processing day-to-day life. We live out our days, one after the other, in a very linear fashion. But, in our thinking—as we move from one minute to the next—our minds dart from the past to the future then back to the here and now, hundreds of times a day. We jump from the conversation we had this morning with a co-worker to our plans for dinner later tonight. We move between the events we have lived to the planning of the ones we have yet to live, dozens of times each day.
Another observation about humans and time…. We think of the past as being behind us, and the future as being a road that stretches out in front of us. From my perspective, the future is right behind you. It whispers in your ear—sometimes filled with great expectations, sometimes with fear—but you’re never able to see it with any clarity. You think you know what it looks like, but you never do until it’s history. We are conditioned to believe the past is behind us and the future is ahead of us. But, the truth is, the future is far more likely to sneak up on you from behind and be upon you like a thief in the night. The past is a robber you walk straight into. You see it and you know it because you’ve lived it, and you’re destined to fall into this robber’s trap if you don’t understand its tricks.
So, here’s my idea on why we love time travel: Time is an equation we haven’t yet figured out. Much like the mystery of human existence. In fact, our existence is the very definition of a causal loop paradox. Humans have been placed on this planet with no origin story. We don’t know why we’re here and we don’t know where we go when we leave. This lack of scientific understanding sparks our imagination and drives us to look for answers. Time and time again, that drive brings audiences back to search and explore through the stories that have been crafted out of this grand mystery, this container where we spend our lives, housed inside the construct of time.
Now—about the conversation with myself. I think you might find some of this interesting. My first question to my older self was regarding my younger self’s access to the time travel closet. Of course, my older self knew about it—and how to gain access to it. But, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how my younger self first found her way into the time travel closet and then into my time travel lab. When I was fourteen years old, I wasn’t even interested in time travel.
My older self told me something Ada had suspected. My older self confirmed that you can gain access to the time travel closet through the portal of an altered-state of consciousness. Well, that was it! When I was fourteen, I started to practice meditation. At the time, I was depressed. My family had just relocated, and I had no friends. I’d heard about meditation. I remember going to the library to get books on the subject. I learned about it and began meditating every day. Soon, I felt better. My depression lifted. I would have been more skeptical about this claim of an altered-state portal to time travel if Ada hadn’t developed such a convincing hypothesis from her earlier studies. But, I argued the point with my older self that I simply had no memory of traveling forward in time when I was fourteen years old. I do recall in my meditations, walking through empty libraries. But, I have no memory of meeting with an older me or any desire to face myself as a grown woman.
My older self said that my younger self isn’t aware that she traveled forward in time. My older self said that my fourteen-year-old self is only aware of having been in a deep state of meditation—and her sole purpose in coming through the time travel closet was to ease her depression and her fear of the future and find some assurance that her life will get better.
That’s what she needs from me.
My older self said she’s tried reassuring my fourteen-year-old self, but feels she needs this reassurance from a woman closer to her mother’s age to convince her that things will be okay. That’s why my older self feels it’s important for me to meet with my fourteen-year-old self.
My older self and I were having this conversation last month at one of the tables in the Library of Congress. As we talked, I remember staring down at the surface of the table, and all I could think about was that I had to tell my fourteen-year-old self that she was adopted, and how so much of what she was feeling had been brought on by all the lies she experienced. I remember moving my gaze from the surface of the table, up to meet the eyes of my older self. And when I did, I knew what I was going to say to my fourteen-year-old self. I wasn’t going to tell her about the adoption. I was going to tell her she will have an extraordinary life. She’s going to fall in love with a wonderful man. She’s going to be a writer. And, there will be a time in her life when things take a mysterious turn that she doesn’t expect, but not to worry; it will all work out for the best. I’ll tell her to always trust herself. To listen to the wise internal voice that will lead her down a road she must travel. Then, I’ll tell her to file away in the back of her head everything I’m saying, and at the appropriate time it will move to the forefront of her consciousness.
As I stared into the eyes of my older self, I knew I would say all these things to my fourteen-year-old self. I knew I would say these things here at the Good Shepherd Center.
I knew it—because I remembered it.
It was time for that conversation to come to the forefront of my consciousness and make itself known. I had total recall! I remembered the conversation as a fourteen-year-old girl.
Oh my gosh! It’s time to start the music.
My older self told me that when I was at the Good Shepherd Center and ready to meet with my younger self, I should play this song—it’s Kate Bush, of course, and this time she’s singing Snowflake. I’ll be meeting my younger self on the second floor of this building, at the Carl Jung Library.
Listen. The acoustics are amazing here!
Look at the walls! The music video is being projected onto the walls somehow. No, no…it’s not just on the walls.
The images are moving. Dancing throughout the chapel space. Transparent dancers in the snow. They have no solid mass. Dancing to the music.
Let’s open the doors!
Look! Look—they’re in the hall. Transparent dancers lining the corridor. There’s snow on the floor—real snow.
Now it’s becoming a forest, a transparent forest. There are millions of snowflakes. I can’t touch the dancers, but I can gather the snow. It melts in my hands. All we have is this moment.
It’s time for me to go. I need to meet my fourteen-year-old self.
Thank you for being here. I’ve pressed the button on the elevator that will take us to the proper level. When the doors open, your path out of the Good Shepherd Center will be clear.
Have a wonderful holiday. We have many exciting journeys ahead of us in the new year.
Until then,
Good-bye, friend.
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