Back in Time…

Back in Time…

We recently returned to an event in San Francisco, CA, where I sang on the San Francisco Opera stage. Now, for many, that would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. But I’d sung on that site several times before when I was singing for a living. Don’t get me wrong; it’s always a thrill to sing on one of the world’s greatest stages, but as Huey Lewis sang so aptly, “Better remember, lightning never strikes twice.” I’m not saying the trip was a letdown. Not at all. But you can’t expect to go back like nothing has changed.

A Little Story.

In high school, I helped host a tour and then a dance for a class reunion of the first class to graduate from high school. It was their 20th-year reunion, and I had a great time showing off all the changes and improvements from “their day.” When it came time for the dance portion of the evening, it was eye-opening. The entire class of about 350 broke off into little clusters. The class broke into the same old cliques they had gravitated to when they were in school 20 years earlier. There were the jocks and the cheerleaders; there were the motor-heads and the stoners; there were the theater kids and the scholars. It was like nothing had changed. They still thought, fought, and sought approval in the same way and with the same people they had two decades before.

But after an hour or so of the throwback, things did begin to change. They ran out of things to talk about. They didn’t have the cohesion of all living through the same influences and trajectories they had in school. There were those who were at the top of the heap in school but had fallen into the trap of still living their lives as they had never left those hallowed halls. And there were people no one in school would have given the time of day who were now running companies and taking the real world by storm. After an hour of giggles, hugs, and squeals, the room became mostly full of adults again, talking about their kids, what stock was hot, and where their next job was taking them.

I say mostly because there were a few, maybe 10%, that really couldn’t make the shift. They stayed in their 18-year-old selves. They simply couldn’t grow into who everyone else in their class had become. That throwback 10% became rowdy. They approached the 90% that had moved on and continued to try to drag them back 20 years to their golden age. In most cases, the “grown-ups” in the room just laughed it off and continued their conversations. But, in a few cases, time, frustration (and I’m sure alcohol) emboldened a few of the 10%-ers, and they became increasingly belligerent—name-calling and shouting became the norm.

Fast Forward.

When my turn came, I went to my 20-year reunion. We were in the middle of a move from coast to coast, and I drove not a limo to the party but a moving truck. As I pulled up, I remembered the party I’d been to all those years before and thought that surely my class would react differently. I mean, we were intelligent, we were progressive, we were the new power in the world… Wrong. It was like watching the same movie with different costumes: the same cliques, the same conversations, the same throwbacks.

Later that year, my wife and I went on vacation, first to an older US city and then to Europe. We discussed how some people were stuck in the past and couldn’t grow up and into the future. They were stuck in their heyday of time. As we discussed, we noticed an eerie trend. It wasn’t just people who became stuck in their high point of life. No. Countries did the same! If the high point of a city was 1850, then all its food, architecture, and styles were somewhat stuck in that time-frame. If a country’s apex was 1720, then the culture revolved around keeping that time alive.

And the time we spent in San Francisco was no different. We loved seeing the people we worked, laughed, and played with only a few years ago. They are still great friends and unquestioningly will always be. But life moves on. Lives evolve. Time is a commodity that either we choose to spend on what we want or is taken from us, and we have no say. One way or the other, time is sand that trickles down and through the nexus of the hourglass.

Since we moved away, virtually nothing in our lives has remained the same—jobs, health, prospects—they are all different now. And they should be. Remember, just as your life has changed, advanced, evolved, so has most peoples’ in the room. Humans are not meant to live in a bubble. We are meant to grow, learn, and expand. As St. Junipero Serra once said, “Always forward! Never turn back!” He knew the importance of each day is precious, and you revel in it, and it alone. It’s okay to look back and smile at a memory. There is nothing wrong with that. St. Serra is talking about getting stuck in one place physically, mentally, and spiritually. A very good friend’s favorite passage is from the Book of Ecclesiastes, “For everything there is a season…” Many times this is quoted for a funeral. But it should be held close throughout life. For every year, hour, minute of life, there is a season. And when that season is past, it is time to move on and enjoy the memory of that season.

Another hero of mine who says it in verse far better than me is Robert Frost in The Road Not Taken. He talks about coming to a crossroads and being sorry for not having taken both paths. He ends the poem with, “I doubt I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh, some ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

So no. You can never go “back in time.” But you can relish, enjoy, and live in the presence. And yes, “that [will] make all the difference.”

Back in time… Huey Lewis and the News: https://youtu.be/ur57IunS9To?si=R3hobH7H9ErYrXJ-

The Road Not Taken — Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.