On The Elasticity of Time (And Again)

*There once was a Zoey so bright,
Who grew up faster than light.
She set out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.

We bought a daybed this weekend at Ikea, spending money to make money. We bought the bed to stage our third bedroom for selling our house. And yes, for the very futuristic idea that years from now, maybe when she turns 14 and cars levitate and I can order a venti non-fat, no water chai latte from the surface of my sub-zero fridge, that one day the bed would become Zoey's big girl bed. Of course once we got home Time snapped its rubbery ass right in my face because Zoey demanded to sleep in her new big girl bed that night. Now. Then, the dilation of length, time, mass and energy sighing before my very eyes: my baby has become a big girl and I have become a puddle of particulate cliche. They just grow up so damn fast.

It did not matter that we had no sheets yet for the bed. It did not matter that the bed was not set up in her room, that she did not have her ballerina light, her night-night music or her books. It did not matter that I was not ready. Zoey, I said while stuffing one pink toenailed foot into her fleece heart pajamas, what is the purpose of the Federal Reserve? I wanted to remind both of us that she is still a baby, but then she answered, The Fed is the Central Banking System of the United States, created in 1913 by the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act. And that's when I knew it was over.

Okay, so maybe that last part didn't really happen, but she did watch 60 Minutes with us last night much too quietly, her hands folded in her lap just so, her eyes narrowing with doubt over Ben Bernanke every now and again. When did this happen? The Cult of Quick and Now and Oh, Grow Up? When did the alarm on my bedside table become an Atomic Clock? When did I care about who sleeps where? And why and how and who.

Nacho, my what, my cat. My baby of fur and tail and whiskers the quality of prized porcupine quill. Last night he discovered Zoey's abandoned crib and set up shop on the plush pink blanket and damask rose pillow, all purr and mine and lickety split.

Time is elastic and indifferent. Transparent, or maybe that's just me. In my town there is a woman of questionable mind who pushes her dogs down the street in a Graco stroller. They each have a blanket, one blue and one pink, I can only assume because one dog is a boy and the other a girl. The woman is friendly, chats you up if you stop to stare. And I do: stare, because I have seen my future, 30 years from now in the sting of a rubber band. I have known what it is to baby something, to love, to tuck in, to kiss closed eyelids like a prayer laced with faint capillaries.

Knowing that, I don't think I could ever not love, not tuck in, not travel to Zoey's marriage bed to tickle her back, not stand in the doorway with reassurances unasked, I'm here, Mama's here, right here, (her husband or partner sighing and rolling over, vowing not to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my house ever again). And suddenly, the particulars of the behavior of time as specified in the theory of relativity do not seem quite so questionable, quite so insane, dogs in strollers and cats in the cradle, kisses on eyelids and whiskers on kittens.

*Limerick a take-off on this one, published in 1923 as a critique of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.