If I had a time machine I would send my little ones’ mother back so that I could raise her right along with her children. She’d be the slightly-younger clone of her daughter; I can just picture the two of them playing dress-up, putting on makeup and in general raising every sort of pink-drenched and giggling hell.
I wish I had a time machine. I wish it so hard as the day approaches for her to be delivered from her most recent pregnancy and I think back on the time she’s been in my life and wish, so hard, that the trajectory we saw (or wanted to see) six-plus years ago had held true. I wish.
I wish I had a time machine not just so that I could give multiple blond, curly-headed generations a decent upbringing but also to give something to myself. I would in fact send back a song:
You can laugh
A spineless laugh
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you
What child, surging with the blood of teenage rebellion, would not respond to those words? I can picture myself at seventeen, boombox cranked, dancing around my bedroom (or sulking beneath the sheets) and screaming along, the pain of my own foray into Romeo-and-Juliethood dimmed at least momentarily by righteous anger. The first time the verse quoted above played from my laptop’s speakers unexpected tears filled up my eyes and as I wiped them away (again and again) I hit repeat (again and again) ’til the song printed itself upon my brain to such a degree that I could almost imagine that it had been there for twenty-five years instead of minutes.
I wish I had a time machine. I’ll settle instead for moving backward and forward through time, shoring up the imperfection as best I can.
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Programming note: posting will be light as I travel to Momentum today through Monday.
