Time Traveling......or, "The Wanderer"

I just got back from Disney World...........actually, that trip was in 1990, but I "went" there again recently when I heard the song "Hot Hot Hot" play while I shopped. This recent "trip" was short, but nearly real, as I stopped still, closed my eyes, and for a brief minute or two, there I was, standing in the heat at Disney World with three excited little kids, watching an afternoon parade through the streets of the Magic Kingdom.  I saw my daughter wiggle, and my sons throw their hands up and sing along to the chorus while we all shouted, "Hot Hot Hot!" in the heat.

I call it "Time Traveling," for lack of a better name.......and I do it often.  It is less expensive than real travel, and sometimes more enjoyable.  A "little trip" can be started by music, a scent, or just being somewhere for a moment.

I can be on a warm beach at any opportunity,  by stretching my arms out in front of myself when I am sitting, closing my eyes, and tilting my head upwards. I imagine the sound of waves and squawks of a lone seagull. I take "little vacations" frequently when the stress of life starts to wear on me.

If I walk into an old school building, the smell of orange peels and peanut butter takes me directly back to third grade at Fairlawn School..........walking timidly to the lunchroom.

"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) " puts me in the driver's seat, with my three children singing along in the back seat, driving me crazy with the same lyrics over and over............or taking a walk in the Poland Woods with the three straggling along behind, hanging on to each other for support, hounding me with the same nagging tune and lyrics.  ("Travel the world and the seven seas....")  I roll my eyeballs and laugh inwardly, "being there" for these brief visits to the past. Oh, to be there again.....

Music is a huge tool for time travel . An "our song" from a long-ago love, we all know, brings nostalgia.............good or bad.

Hymns take me back to the third pew of the church where I raised my children. "For All the Saints" makes my tears flow, and I can smell hyacinths at an Easter service.  "Amazing Grace" puts me in the front pew, at Philip's funeral.  There are some places where I just don't travel , so I shut that one off. I can't always control the time traveling.

Smells are interesting vehicles. A whiff of pipe smoke brings my grandfather briefly into view, and the foul odor of a cigarette takes me to college bars and stuffy apartments filled with ashes.

The Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction" puts me at a college freshman "mixer," where I danced for the very first time, having always been too timid, until I knew, at that moment, that it was do or die.  It was an 'Aha Moment' in my life.

A magazine ad that invites me to visit South Dakota actually takes me there. If the South Dakota tourism advertisers only knew how successful their ad is!  I mentally travel through Spearfish Canyon, eat an Indian flat bread breakfast, and I haven't even turned the pages!

A photo of beautiful food served on a colorfully-set table can put me right there, inspire me to cook that meal and set that table, while at the same time taking me back to a similar setting and meal. I can almost hear the conversation and remember the comfy feeling of the padded chair.

The sight of a bag of coconut at the market this morning took me soaring back to Mom's kitchen, and hot Impossible Pie steaming on the corner counter top.  I could almost taste it............so bought the coconut, came home and recreated that moment in my own kitchen!

Attached to my neck is my head, inside of which is my brain............the storehouse of the finest computer in the world. While I may type on my Toshiba and store photos in Picasa, my brain can take me back to times or places, if I let it. I can be three, learning to ride a bike, seven and learning to write in cursive, nineteen and experimenting with new friendships, or thirty-five with my children in tow.

My hope for my real-life future is to travel to faraway places, see what is yet unseen, revisit favorite places, sit on quiet beaches with good books, and love passionately.

I've  already done those things, and not that I won't again, but in case I ever cannot,  I know that as long as my mind is working, I will be able to be somewhere in time, given a reminder by song, scent or scenery.  We are all capable of taking mini-trips and mini-vacations, mentally, if we let ourselves just go and enjoy!  I may go back to Disney World again soon!

The Paper Chain, ...........or, "Unchained Melody"

The day I decided to retire, for sure, I made a pastel-colored paper chain and stretched it around the upper part of my guest room, which is really my "closet."   The pretty chain went totally the length and width of two of the walls, and on that day had 135 links in shades of lavender, pink, and yellow.

I removed a link here and there as autumn passed, sometimes forgetting for an entire week at a time.  As the leaves outside fell, links fell until it had shortened by half of one wall.

After Christmas it was down to 100 links, and suddenly it became slow and torturous work to remove one simple link.  I decided that I was so done teaching that if I could set fire to the paper chain and watch it go up in smoke, I would be joyous, as long as those days also disappeared.  I knew that would not work. I was reminded of Marley's Ghost, wearing the chains he forged in life.............."made link by link..........gartered it on of my own free will.......and by my own free will, I wore it."  I wanted to shed the whole thing.........the chain, the job........ALL OF IT!

Today there are "only" 62 links left.  That is 62 more 5 A.M. alarm clock shockings, 62 more one-cup-o-coffee preparations in my bedroom the night before, 62 more lunches for my husband to creatively and lovingly pack for me, 62 more rides across this city I love, and 62 more exhausted rides back across this city, too tired to even stop to pick up a carton of milk.

I am not old.  I am going to turn 65 in a few months, but I am a young 65.  I have taken care of myself over the years, and look forward to many years of enjoying NOT working.  I have traveling to do, books to read, recipes to cook, people to meet, and things to do at long last, without having a bell tell me when to stop and start, like Pavlov's dog, with whom I have come to relate.

The retirement package sat on my desk since last July waiting for me to fill in the blanks.  I only have one more page to write on. It shall be in the mail by the end of this weekend.

I have filled a hole in a landfill with advertisements for Medicare supplemental health insurance received over the past year.  Most of them went directly there, unopened.

I have removed personal items from my classroom, and given away teaching tools when I knew they had seen the light of day for the final time in MY career.  Stacks of teacher-created materials have been graciously received by the "recycling team" as I tossed out tests and writing directions that I have written over the years for my students.

The sticker collection has been weeded out. Holiday pencils have been awarded, even for the wrong holiday this year. My "little library" has been packed and taken to Randy's grandchildren, and the encyclopedias given to a student whose family values education.

The paper chain will NOT get shorter any faster, no matter what I do, however.  I cannot seem to go to bed one night and then wake up surprised to find lots of days disappeared, unnoticed!  Every single one is the same 5 A.M. shock alarm, the stumbling trip to the kitchen, the what-to-wear-today dilemma, and then the early morning ride, in the dark, across this city that I love.

Some days I go directly to my dressing room when I get home, and purposefully rip off that day's link. There!  One less! Enough, already yet!!

Paper chains were useful tools when I was a child. My sister and I would count off days until Christmas, and I am sure the making of the chain kept us out of the way while we cut and taped or stapled or glued. (I have a vague remembrance of making my own glue out of flour and water, actually.........Maybe I am older than I think I am....)

Once Randy had asked me to marry him, the first thing I did was make a paper chain to count off the three months until our wedding day.  I think that chain seemed to have an eternal life, too, as I recall.

"Wishing my life away," is how I chastise myself when I realize that I am obsessing over how many more days until I get my life back, and let the Youth of America figure out how to get along without me, (which, I daresay, they are more than eager to do.)  The guilt over treating even a single day as if it is to "get it over with" makes me cringe, but I still do it.

I have a day off coming, to go to the dentist. That link is decorated with pictures of teeth. (Until it is past, the link must remain on the chain, you see.....) I also get a "personal day," which I have chosen to take on my sixty-fifth birthday:  NO ONE should work on her sixty-fifth birthday! (or ANY birthday, methinks....)  That link just says "BIRTHDAY" on it.  I try to visualize the paper chain with those two less links in it.............for a mental boost, of sorts, and know that on the days when I get to remove them, like GET OUT OF JAIL FREE cards, I will gleefully laugh aloud and feel total joy!

To make my life even more exciting, I have added a Google "tool" to my homepage:  a countdown counter.  It tells EXACTLY how many days, hours, minutes and seconds until the final bell rings on my last day in the classroom!   It moves like the National Debt counter----very quickly.  Can you tell I am really IN to countdowns?  I've caught myself before the screen, in a mesmerized state, eyes glued to the second counter, as it ticks backward...............a very freeing feeling!

The paper chain still has 62 links as I type this.  By the time I hit the "publish" button for this blog entry, it will have a few less.  If I told my students about the chain, they would think I am a crazy old lady (which even YOU might be thinking right now............and they already think), but what I see is a person on the brink of changing her life, and going on to new adventures with huge anticipation.

 It is like seeing the end of the diving board in one of those dreams that we all have ............and the approach is going in such s-l-o-w  m-o-t-i-o-n.....and the board seems to be growing, and the end is so very hard to reach...!

On June 7th, by 3:00, I will have removed the last link.  The wall will be bare, the trash can will hold the pink, yellow and violet remains of my "tool of anticipation."   I will shout, "Free at Last!" several times, and go out and celebrate with family and friends. (I certainly hope that Somebody will have planned Something.....!)

This is probably not my final paper chain. We chain-makers get little thrills out of them, after all.  I believe Charlie Brown once said that, "The anticipation exceeded the actual event."  I will let you know if that holds true.................but I don't think it will.

Copyright:  KP Gillenwater