Time Traveling

I’m reading the book, The Time Traveler's Wife. Henry is the time traveler who first meets his future wife, Clare, when she’s 6. He gets unavoidably whisked around in time. He disappears from a scene in, say, 1998 to find himself suddenly, usually without his clothes, which mysteriously disappear in transit, at an entirely different place 10 years earlier-or later. Clare never knows if he’ll disappear or if he’ll reappear 10 years older. They met when he was 36 so when she meets him at age 28 – he doesn’t know her. It’s crazy and it messes up my head. But it’s sweet. At one point, she’s asked if she misses him. She says, “Every day, every minute.” It makes me ache to think of loving someone who could disappear into thin air.

I was at some friend’s house last night. They were just being themselves, opening wine, and putting the pizza in the oven. Their little girl played with her toys and the dog wandered around, a happy chaos. It’s so different from my quiet house. And for a while I was lost in their happy, tame domestic life. But then I had to go. Back into the literal cold night and back to my quiet, lonely house. How I ache for that again. A little house filled with love and laughter, how I want to time travel and see if it ever happens to me again. Or would I be disappointed and saddened to find I am always the third wheel. Always looking into the miniature Thorne rooms from outside, just dreaming. Am I always standing on the edge of sea waiting for him to come back from his journey, wherever he is. To know or not know.