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The gift of marking time
Editor's Note: This essay appeared in Cognoscenti's newsletter of ideas and opinions, delivered weekly on Sundays. To become a subscriber, sign up here.
A year or so ago, I came across a social media post by a dad who watched a movie with his sons every Friday night. He kept a list, and he shared photos of journal pages stacked with titles and star ratings assigned by his kids, who were in elementary school, that perfect family movie night age where inventive Pixar films can stand side-by-side with family classics.
I remember thinking, “What a cool way to remember that time of life.” Those movies made up more than a list. They told a story.
I immediately wished I’d kept a captain’s log of my own family’s movie nights. We’ve watched the classics: “The Princess Bride,” “Hook,” “Toy Story,” “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.” We’re also fans of “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” because I aim to raise cinephiles. We have a tradition of watching all three “Back to the Future” films between Christmas and New Year’s, so this year everyone’s getting a bean bag chair and cozy blanket.
But I’m not a list keeper — unless it’s a list of lists I wish I’d made: Funny things my kids said as toddlers; which seasons and episodes of “The Simpsons” they watched every night in the first year of the pandemic; novels I read in a year (now that I listen to so many audiobooks, my bookshelf doesn’t tell the full story). In many potential list-making scenarios, I simply don’t have the time or capacity to slow down and think, “Something is happening here. You’ll want to remember this.” Instead, I wish I could reach back into the past and grab a pen.
I recently told one of our Cog contributors that I think of some essays — the ones I often write, the one she was writing — as ways of marking time in a life, as little gifts to the people who make it meaningful. When I wrote about Mel Brooks, I did so thinking about my dad. When I wrote about surfing, I thought of the essay as a memory capsule, something my daughter gets to keep. They’re gifts to me, too, to remember.
There’s this scene in “Spaceballs,” where Rick Moranis, playing a sendup of Darth Vader named “Dark Helmet,” grabs a VHS copy of the movie itself, wanting to rewind and see something he missed. A TV screen shows a mirror image of him in real time, and he demands, “What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?”
His next-in-command, Colonel Sandurz, replies, “Now. You’re looking at now, sir.”
There’s a hilarious back and forth, about what happened to “then,” and how they passed it, and they’re in “now now.” Dark Helmet wants to go back to “then.” Colonel Sandurz says they can’t.
Dark Helmet: “Why?”
Col. Sandurz: “We missed it!”
Dark Helmet: “When?”
Col. Sandurz: “Just now!”
What I’m trying to remember, in the blur of parenthood and work and change, is that while I can continue to try to make space to track time, to keep record as it passes me by, I still won’t have any control over it. And whether we’re committing it to paper or not, a life is made up of lists. I have a shelf in my kitchen reserved for all the little creatures my kids have made at school, in art classes or just at home. They’re weird and wacky, lots of googly-eyes and slightly misshapen clay, and I consider them my prized possessions. They’re a moment in time.
We have a piece this week by David Tanklefsky, inspired by a list-keeping practice he started over 20 years ago. He’s recorded the set list of every show he’s played as a performing musician, starting in his high school friend’s living room, and leading to his current band’s 10th anniversary tour that culminated in Brighton just recently, when his list surpassed 900. In asking himself what all this means, if anything — the list-keeping, all the years siphoned into music made visible — David remembers the words of Joan Didion, who would have turned 90 last week. She said it’s good for us to keep a notebook, any kind, so we may remain on “nodding terms” with the people we used to be.
Lucky for me, nodding terms can take on many forms. Even if it’s quoting a movie you committed to memory when you were 8 years old.
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