On The Passing of Time

Tarzana, CA, May 2018 — I took note of the date because I wrote this essay in approximately a month, between home in California and Italy, where we visited my family during the month of June. What you are about to read is about the passing of time, the stretching of time through space, or vice versa.

A few days ago Catherine slept in the nursery by herself for the first time.

Ben and I had had the room for ourselves occasionally, when Karla (our doula) or the nanny would spend the night, but this time, the change felt permanent, a milestone that, like every milestone, came with some bittersweet.

Maybe it’s my imagination, or maybe I am inclined to melancholia, but time appears to have changed in shape since Catherine was born.

Since December 16, 2017, in fact, time has become heavier with an added dimension — or maybe lighter, lacking one. What I am trying to say is, that since Catherine has come into this world time isn’t the time I used to know: it passes at once much slower and much faster.

“She used to sleep in bed with us,” I said to Ben on the first night that Catherine slept in her crib. He had just put her to sleep, and we were about to have dinner.

I took a sip of tea, and looked at him, sad. “I can’t believe it’s been almost six months.”

When we had brought her home from the hospital, and for the first three months, Catherine had slept in bed between us, nestled in a snuggly co-sleeper, cream in color, of the softest cotton.

Hourly night feedings were the norm, and even though I was tired, I cherished that sacred time she and I shared at 4 am; we waited for the sun to come up, then we would go back to bed for some more sleep.

Having taken several breaks during the writing of this essay, I often feared forgetting what I wanted to write about, or simply changing my mind on the topic, but the material lay before me written already, written in time.

One of the first things we did when we arrived in Avigliana, the small town I come from, was to visit my 96-year old grandmother. And it was there, in her two-bedroom apartment across the street from the train station, that I realized how time, on this occasion, and differently from what had happened when Catherine slept by herself for the first time, seemed to never have passed.

While my family was in the kitchen with my grandmother, I went to the bathroom and saw the stillness of time before my eyes: the small room made of toilet, sink, bidet, and narrow tub, was the exact same space I remembered from when I was 10 — a collection of miniature perfume bottles, the fragrances now clearly aged, Avon powder that I am sure grandma had not used for years, an old, dusty toothbrush, the same old toothpaste in a plastic plastic container with The Smurfs on it, and that unforgettable smell of Tuscan soap, or grandma soap as I like to call it, in the air.

But why did time go fast when it came to Catherine? Does time change through time, or is it our perception that makes us more sensitive to its passing?

Time goes by fast, it halts for years and years, it goes fast again when we don’t want to, and then it slows down when, perhaps, there is something to learn from the lingering of the uncomfortable hours. I often complain when time takes time; I shouldn’t.

A few days after visiting with my grandmother, my father and I had an argument for something I was trying to not argue about. “How can time pass and some things never change?” I asked myself. I took note of my thoughts without really connecting to this essay what had happened.

It took me a while to realize that, unlike what I had thought at first, after arguing with my father, things had changed a great deal. In fact, even though arguing was an old pattern, my not engaging represented the change. I didn’t run away, binge, get high, cut myself, or have sex with a stranger — my old behaviors in similar circumstances.

The drive to the Basilica of Superga, where we were headed that day, had been long and heavy on my heart, but by the time we had arrived, the feeling had been contained, not swallowed alive. So it had died.

At home, something new caught me by surprise again: my father and I had actually talked; we gave each other the time to explain.

After the visit to Superga, I took yet another break from writing.

We went to Florence, and traveling with a six-month old doesn’t leave much room for creative endeavors. I started to think about the blog on our way back home, driving though beautiful, sunny Liguria, on Thursday the 14th of June.

I had read my notes and felt lost.

“How am I going to end it?” I thought. I had no idea that time was about to give me more material and that, with its passing, the direction of this story would somewhat change. Because time is change. Time changes, and change takes time.

We arrived home from Florence around 6:30 pm, we parked the car at my parents’, and despite my mom’s happiness in seeing Catherine again, a veil of sadness covered her eyes. My father wasn’t there; he was at the veterinarian’s with my dog, Giulio.

“He is not well,” my mom said. “Dad is picking you up so you can see him.”

I saw my dog for the last time that very evening; he passed away an hour after we left the doctor’s. Time had gotten me again — a few days before a furry pug walked around the house, rested in between my feet, or jumped for a few bread crumbs leftover from dinner, now his spirit had left the body, the only tangible sign of his presence in this life.

I am in a small town called Pilaz, in the Aosta Valley, as I write the end of this story. I started to come to this corner of heaven when I was six months old. Catherine is six months. And by bringing her here I feel as if I am showing gratitude to the time that has passed, as well as to the time that is passing in this very moment.

We spent four days here, and during one of the last walks we took, in Champoluc, through the meadow and the pine grove, I began to remember and understand episodes of my childhood which time seemed to have removed, ignored, covered up with the dust of other events, more episodes.

“I need to end the essay instead of keep adding on to it,” I told Ben. Catherine was asleep in the stroller, so we whispered.

“Why I kept green caterpillars and ladybugs as pets when I was eight years old deserves a new one, don’t you think?” “I think you’re right,” he said.

Had I had this realization a year ago, I would not have been able to process it. Had I remembered about the green caterpillar and the ladybug a month ago, I wouldn’t have understood, yet again, that time is always on my side, it our side; it has always been. If we don’t fight it, or force it, time works with us to show us the way, the answer, all that we need.

I am making peace with time.

And I will tell you the story of the caterpillar and the ladybug at another time, when the time is right.