Time is the substance I am made of.
Time is a river which sweeps me along,
but I am the river;
it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger;
it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”
Jorge Luis Borge
Do you spend any time thinking about time? The space-time continuum, the paradox of time machines, the philosophy and physics of time, the illusion of time…it’s a fun topic to explore, so long as you stop before your head explodes.
We say the winter dragged on, the summer flew by, we talk of being on time, of saving time and wasting time. There are countless songs about time – time in a bottle, time after time, does anybody really know what time it is? These days, I find it’s more fun to think about thyme – I grow a lot of it; it’s easy to care for, and it creeps.
Time-lapse photography amazes me. I’d try it, if I had the skill, and the equipment, and the time. I do enjoy choosing one subject (like a tree), shooting it from the same vantage point (more or less) over a long period of time (years). It’s not true time-lapse, but shares some of its properties.
One such tree is a small maple growing on the bank near the water’s edge. Only the top half is visible from my perch on the verandah; the rest is hidden behind our storage shed. I call it “The Boathouse Tree”.
I can also see The Boathouse Tree from inside, through a window when I’m standing on my yoga mat. My balance is not the best, focusing my eyes on something straight and tall helps, especially for balance poses, like Tree Pose.
I noticed how many photos I’d taken of the Boathouse Tree one day while I was sorting digital photos into albums - a time-consuming process because I take too many, and I don’t curate them in the moment, as one should. I thought the boathouse tree collection might make a nice slideshow, with instrumental music in the background.
I noticed the colours of the lake and sky in the background; the comings and goings of clouds and planes; branches swaying in the wind or bending under the weight of ice and snow…the changing landscapes, the passing of time.
And then I started to notice all the things that didn’t change - the contour of horizon on the far shore, the enduring shape of the trunk and branches of The Boathouse Tree.
And then I started to notice the consistency of changes - the return of bud and leaf, the return of robin and song sparrow. And that got me thinking about time again.
I thought about my original song - Time Travels. It was on my to-do list for a lyric video, with some of my photographs in the background - and the match was made.
The origin story of the song, Time Travels, begins a long time ago. As a songwriter, there’s nothing better than to experience a moment of inspiration that makes you pick up your guitar and spill chords and lyrics onto a blank page. Wow, where did that come from? you say to yourself.
This song did not happen that way. I struggled with it - for decades – changing lyrics, styles, titles…one working title was Unfinished Business, so that tells you something. If I hadn’t finally recorded it on an album in 2013, essentially freezing one version of the song for all time, I would likely be making changes still.
I started to write the melody and a few lines on my 40th Birthday. I know that, because of the journal I was keeping at the time. I’d made some big changes in my life in the preceding decade (a long story for another time), but turning 40, I was feeling deficient. Unmet goals and self-improvements - I chastised myself, whined across the pages - time was passing so quickly! I would soon be too old to accomplish my dreams! [at 40, imagine] G, D, C…Days they drift away, streams to waterfalls… It will soon be now or never...
Fast-forward to a few years later...
It was a melancholy day, an uncle had died; after the service we gathered for funeral sandwiches and sweets at the family homestead. It was crowded, we didn’t stay long. When we came to the old stone steps carved into the grassy hill, I extended my arm, and my Dad took my elbow. Dressed in his dark suit, handsome, his mind and body didn’t show his nearly eighty years – but the painful veins that bubbled his legs made him unsteady that day. He paused for a moment, looked back. “I can’t believe it,” he said, “that I need help now, getting down these steps.” A half-smile came over his face, a hint of apology. Playing with siblings in the yard; the leaps of a boy, the long strides of a young man, up and down those crumbling steps countless times without a moment’s hesitation…he could picture it all, so could I.
At home a few hours later, it felt so clear, what I had seen in my father’s eyes that day. I picked up my notebook and scribbled, “Something inside never changes”.
“Long ago, I used to be a young man, and dear Margaret remembers that for me.” [A lyric from The Dutchman, by Michael Peter Smith,1968 I will never write a song as good as that one. Look it up later and have a listen, if you have time.)
The people who really know us, who love us…they don’t see the wrinkles or tired eyes or the unsteady gait, or even the more ravaging changes - they see who we are inside. It’s what we see in them, too. It’s the part of us we recognize in an old childhood picture, the part that still looks back at us in the mirror, if only a glimpse; the part that holds sway against the years, the part that does not change. You can choose your own label: soul, identity, true self…your centre.
The powerful inspiration I was gifted on those old stone steps that day with my dad, turned into more lyrics, a bridge, a finished song - “I Turn To You”.
Like so many songs, there was metaphor in the lyrics, meanings left open to interpretation by the listener. After a concert one evening, a young woman approached the stage when I was packing up my guitar. She thanked me, said that particular song really touched her. She felt it was about prayer – that the You in the title and lyrics was God. I thanked her and said that was lovely. There was no reason to explain my own interpretation when I wrote it - that the You in the song is Me.
I changed a few more lyrics over the years, renamed the song to Time Travels when I recorded it. If I had to define it now, the original meaning is still there, but I’d be inclined to broaden the scope of You – to Love, to Everything. And there is no now or never or forever, there is only time.
If you listen and view Time Travels - The Boathouse Tree, I invite you to take a few extra moments after, to think about your own center, to travel through your own thoughts about the passing of time, about what changes - around you and within you - to think about what does not change.
“Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream. And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.” (Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet)
THE LYRIC VIDEO = TIME TRAVELS (featuring The Boathouse Tree)