62
" Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next—and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.
William James first wrote about the curious warping and foreshortening of psychological time in his Principles of Psychology in 1890: “In youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those of a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous and long-drawn-out,” he wrote. “But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse.” Life seems to speed up as we get older because life gets less memorable as we get older. “If to remember is to be human, then remembering more means being more human,” said Ed. "
― Joshua Foer , Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
63
" He could swear he did not look back, could not—by any optical chance, or in any prism—have seen her physically as he walked away; and yet, with dreadful distinction, he retained forever a composite picture of her standing where he left her. The picture—which penetrated him, through an eye in the back of his head, through his vitreous spinal canal, and could never be lived down, never—consisted of a selection and blend of such random images and expressions of hers that had affected him with a pang of intolerable remorse at various moments in the past. "
― Vladimir Nabokov , Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
64
" Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
The Parian Statue, bending o'er the Urn,
The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
It pays Affection's debt, is due concern
To the FOR EVER ABSENT, tho' it mourn
Fashion's allotted time. If Time consumes,
While Life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
Memory shou'd hourly feed;—if, thro' each day,
She with whate'er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish'd Frame,
O! can the alien Heart expect to prove,
In worlds of light and life, a reunited love! "
― Anna Seward , Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace
69
" Chris smiled at me, showing two ridiculously cute dimples and a few feet away a waitress dropped an empty cup she had cleared from a table. Blushing, she muttered an apology and hurried inside.
I scowled at him, refusing to be swayed by his charm.
“I see,” he murmured, nodding slightly as if he had just solved a puzzle.
“See what?” Ignoring my question, he pulled out a cell phone, hit a number and held the phone out to me. I hesitated for a few seconds then took the phone and put it to my ear.
“What’s up, Chris?” said a familiar deep voice on the other end.
“Good question,” I responded tersely.
“I told Chris you’d recognize him if he got too close.” Was that amusement in his tone?
“Great. You won the bet. Buy him a beer or whatever.” I glanced at Chris, saw that he looked amused now, too and I grew even more agitated. “I thought we had an understanding when you left here last week.”
“And what understanding would that be?” I gritted my teeth. “The one where you go your way and I go mine and we all live happily ever after.”
“I don’t recall that particular arrangement,” he replied in his infuriatingly easy manner. “I believe I told you I’d be seeing you again.”
I opened my mouth but words would not come out. People say ‘I’ll be seeing you’ all the time when they say good bye. It doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean they will send their friends to stalk you.
“Sara?”
“What do you want from me, Nikolas? I told you I just want to be left alone.”
There was a brief silence then a quiet sigh on the other end. “We got word of increased activity in Portland and we have reason to believe the vampire might be searching for you.”
It felt like an icy breath touched the back of my neck. Eli’s face flashed through my mind and my knees wobbled.
Roland stepped close to me. “What’s wrong, Sara? What is he saying to you?”
I smiled weakly at Roland and put up a hand to let him know I’d fill him in when I got off the phone. “I don’t know anyone in Portland so there is no way he can trace me here, right?”
“There is more than one way to track someone.” Nikolas’s voice hardened. “Don’t worry, we will keep you safe. Chris will stay close by until we handle this situation.”
Great, I was the ‘situation’ again. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m not a child.”
“No you’re not,” he replied gruffly and warmth unfurled in my stomach. “But you are not a warrior either. It is our duty to protect you even if you don’t want it.”
I felt like stomping my feet like a two year old. Didn’t I get any choice in this? My eyes fell on Chris as I spoke. “How close is he planning to stay? He’s kind of conspicuous and I can’t have my uncle or anyone else asking questions.”
Chris peered in confusion down at his form-fitting blue jeans and black sweater as Nikolas said, “Conspicuous?”
I looked heavenward. “If you guys wanted to blend in you shouldn’t have sent Dimples here. The way some of the women are staring at him, I might end up having to protect him instead.”
There was a cough on the other end and Nikolas sounded like he was grinning when he said, “Ah, I’m sure Chris can take care of himself. He will be in town in case we suspect any trouble is coming that way. "
― Karen Lynch
