Spirals

I used to think of time as linear. Consecutive. I lived there, then I lived there, now I live here. First grade, second grade, third grade. I grew taller; I grew up.

I had a friend once, a guy I knew in college, who believed that all moments in time exist simultaneously. He said it's only our consciousness which moves past these moments in a linear way. It made him happy, thinking that his finest moments still existed somehow. His theory made sense to me but I dearly hoped he was wrong -- preferring, in those days, that certain embarrassing moments cease to exist as soon as I could forget about them.

Lately I've been thinking about the characters in one of Ursula LeGuin's books, who consider time to be spiral. The spiral is an important metaphor in the culture she invented for the book, much like the straight line is important in ours. Her people think of going out and coming back, like a yoyo; they think in terms of journey and return. (Book title: "Always Coming Home.")



I am beginning to see time that way, too. I would draw it for you but, you know, this Blogger thing only lets me write in straight lines. It goes like this:



MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridayWeekendMondayTuesday



SpringSummerFallWinterSpringSummer



EasterFourthofJulyHalloweenThanksgivingChristmasEasterFourthofJuly



My peas are growing again, as they did the year before and as they will next year. I see bees in the vine maples again; the strawberry flowers are blooming again; mint is growing by the river again. Again, again, again.



As I begin a second year -- and in some cases a third! -- of reading others' blogs, this sense of time winding back around is very strong. We all react to spring the same way, every year, did you know? It's funny and comforting.



Note that I'm not saying we're running on a wheel. Time is not a circle, with one Memorial Day overlain on the previous one. This holiday weekend isn't identical to the last. It's a spiral. The years lie beside each other, not quite touching.

Here, take a look at these spirals. (Oh how I love the internet! These are taken from Wolfram Mathworld): the parabolic spiral and the Cornu spiral:







Think of time shaped like that!

Holes in the lawn

I feed our squirrels. I don't feed them regularly and I don't feed them much, as they are already the nation's fattest squirrels (they eat ponderosa pine nuts). I use the food as a lure. I want those squirrels to spend time on the deck, where my children can see them.

The other day, however, my daughter discovered a bag of unshelled peanuts in the pantry. She shouted, "Squirrel food!" and, before anyone could stop her, dumped the entire bag outside. My neighbor and her children stopped by and we all squatted down to eat some, but really, a whole lotta peanuts remained on the deck.

Throughout that day the squirrels frenzied. Usually not more than one squirrel visits at a time -- they're not family-oriented creatures, those squirrels -- but that day we had up to three of them racing down the ponderosa that grows through the hole in the deck, grabbing a peanut, racing back up. I noticed them burying peanuts in my flower pots. They buried peanuts in all the dirt I loosened for gardening. They made me laugh. The phrase "He's acting squirrelly" has a vivid meaning for me now.

What I forgot is that the squirrels don't live only at my house and, you know, they're not universally beloved. The next evening I heard my kind, elderly neighbor, the one with the lovely green lawn (the only one with a lovely green lawn), shooing at them. When my husband came home she asked if he had noticed their odd behavior. "They're burying things in my yard!" she cried.

Oooops.