Years ago, a friend of mine (more than a friend, sometimes a friend, maybe not a friend) was trying to describe a theory about time as being non-linear. They gestured with their hands, one above, one below, and said “it’s like if time was a stack of plates, all at once”.
I didn’t understand it, but because I so badly wanted to impress this person, I agreed enthusiastically. “It’s like Abraham Lincoln is being murdered right NOW!” they said. “Wow” I said.
I still don’t understand it, not in the terms this sometimes-friend hoped I would. But more and more lately I keep seeing old versions of myself around corners and in puddles. I see him in graveyards too. Is that like how Abraham Lincoln is being murdered right now? Maybe. All I know is that there is a plate somewhere in the stack that I would really like to see, and to give care to.
I’m making another movie featuring my animated alter ego, Frog-With-Human-Ears. In this second installment of the series, he is chasing after another Frog With Human Ears, an older one: one who doesn’t speak or emote, but whistles, slaps water, and walks slowly. The Old Frog is wise, but far away— too far to talk to. The New Frog is fast, but not fast enough to understand the Old Frog.
As part of the film, I set the scene of a long hallway featuring many picture frames. This environment is a tiny painted diorama which my animated Frogs will traverse. Inside the small painted frames, I am setting teeny tiny pictures of myself as a child: Human Me. Human With Human Ears. I’ve placed each teeny photo into a 4x6 photoshop file, which I will print from Walgreens Print Shop tomorrow morning, and cut out each picture to place in each tiny frame.
In looking at these teeny tiny pictures, I have the feeling that time is a stack of plates, but not the understanding. These teeny lads in these teeny pictures are not behind me, but beneath or above me. I think the issue here is that I keep looking over my shoulder. I need to feel the bottoms of my feet and the top of my hairs. I’m still not sure I understand the stack of plates— not well enough to access them. But it must mean something that I can SEE the teeny lads in the teeny pictures. I can really see them.