November 15: Tralfamadorian Concept, Mobius Strip, Hope

Billy Pilgrim checked into the Royalton Hotel on Forty-fourth Street in New York.  He by chance was given a room which had once been the home of George Jean Nathan, the critic and editor.  Nathan, according to the Earthling concept of time, had died back in  1958.  According to the Tralfamadorian concept, of course, Nathan was still alive somewhere and always would be.

The room was small and simple, except that it was on the top floor, and had French doors which opened onto a terrace as large as the room.  And beyond the parapet of the terrace was the air space over Forty-fourth Street.  Billy now leaned over that parapet, looked down at all the people moving hither and yon.  They were jerky little scissors.  The were a lot of fun.

It was a chilly night, and Billy came indoors after a while, closed the French doors.  Closing those doors reminded him of his honeymoon.  There had been French doors on the Cape Ann love nest of his honeymoon, still were, always would be.

Billy turned on his television set, clicking its channel selector around and around.  He was looking for programs on which he might be allowed to appear.  But it was too early in the evening for programs that allowed people with peculiar opinions to speak out.  It was only a little after eight o'clock, so all the shows were about silliness or murder.  So it goes.

The Tralfamdorian concept of time, as I've written before, is not linear.  It's more like a Mobius strip, something continuous and looped so that it's possible to go back to the beginning by going to the end and vice versa.  In fact, I would say that time doesn't really exist for Tralfamdorians.  Time is a human concept.

Of course, the passage of time is how we understand the universe.  Things come into being, live for a little while, and then wink out of existence, never to be seen or heard again.  It's not very comforting, I know.  Yet, humans have come to terms with this temporality.  We've learned that letting go is a part of breathing and living and loving.  Change is a constant.

If you've read this post thus far, you're probably expecting me to say something slightly profound about eternity, maybe rage against the dying of the light, per Dylan Thomas.  Being a Christian, I don't think of death as anything final.  It's a step, like passing from one room to another, hopefully better, room.

That image of passage, however beautiful, doesn't comfort me much at the moment.  Unlike Billy, I have not been privy to glimpses of the future or past.  I don't know what going to happen to me in the next hour or day or week or year.  Billy has seen his future--including his own death--so he's not afraid of anything like bombs falling from the sky or planes crashing into mountains.

The best I can do this afternoon is give thanks for the breaths I'm taking right now, for the words that my fingers are tapping out of the keyboard.  I'm thankful for my class this evening.  For the students who show up to accept whatever knowledge I impart.  And I'm thankful for my car that will carry me home after I'm done teaching.

Of course, none of those things I just listed are guarantees.  They're merely hopes until they happen.  Human beings live on hope.  Hope for breath and food and sex and love.  We hope for all these things, each and every day.

Saint Marty is kind of addicted to hope.