The sands of time are best observed at your twentieth (or thirtieth or fortieth) high school reunion. This weekend I spent a marvelous six hours getting reacquainted with people I hadn’t seen in 23 years. When I was 16, I spent a year abroad at a German high school in the suburbs of Bonn. What astonished me most was how we remembered each other ~ some of the people barely remembered me at all while others recalled details even I had forgotten. It was a spectacular way to establish a positive relationship with time. We might have a few lines and stories more, but our true selves had already been formed when we met.

The neat thing about old friends is not only the shared history, but also the immediate background of relatedness you feel with someone you knew when you weren’t who you are today. The ever-evolving temporal-spatial relationship reminds me of my daughter’s geometry homework. Parallel lines never met. Perpendicular ones do, but only for one point in time.  Some of our lines cross. Some of them don’t. The mystery of time unfolding keeps us in a constant state of curiosity. What will happen next?

Life. A glorious thrill ride.