One year. One year. What does that mean, really? If time were linear, why would we care? It must not be. Time is a three dimensional spiral; a spring, perhaps. As you travel along it through space-time, you arrive each year at the same point in one plane, but a very different point in another. As we move along the z-axis of that spring, farther and farther from our beginning, our memories fade with distance. We can only see so far, you know. As we spiral through time and space we encounter others. Some we touch just briefly; others begin to intertwine their spirals, and destinies, with ours. As a partnership forms the spirals begin to align and spin in perfect synchronization. A double-helix. Our DNA. Our life-blood is not just composed of ourselves, but of those we meet. I am myself. I am others.
Over the past year my single spiral of life has become not a double, a triple, but a quadruple-helix, tightly interwoven with three others’ lives. Their lives are my life. My life is their life. At times the quadruple-helix can be beautiful and in perfect synchronization, spinning and flying through the ether. At others, the gyrating dance can be a shaky sight. As we pass through the same point of revolution, one year from our beginning, I no longer lead my own destiny, but rather, simultaneously lead and follow three others. It is a great responsibility and a great comfort to be more than yourself.
This 360-degree cycle in two dimensions has produced a great distance in the third. I have passed through a new city, three residences, countless hours of writing, playing, perfecting, learning, discovering, and knowing. I have made three of the best friends and worst enemies I could have ever hoped for. The future is no clearer to me now than it was one year ago, but for all the uncertainty, the blindness, the unknown, we have spiraled through it all together and accomplished more than we could have dared hope for. We are ever on the brink of greatness and disaster, of winding tighter or pulling apart like liquorish. I am a different person than I was one year ago, a different person that I was this morning, different than I will be tomorrow, and different than I will be remembered. As my quadruple-helix of life spirals on, four times larger than myself, I can only imagine the possibilities, the excitement, and the worlds I’ll pass through before I arrive back in this plane, 360 degrees from now.
-Wyatt
