Wading through Time & Self

An Autumn Memory by way of Nothing-Somethings and Something-Nothings

I’m on a train.

The train is full. Every seat is taken and no one looks like me. No one thinks like me or talks like me or sounds like me or smells like me. No one looks like me at all.

and there are no more seats.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Tense is gonna be all over the place here. I started this piece way back in August and now it’s when? Man.

This afternoon, I threw on my shoes, put in my headphones, and headed out for a run. But then instead of Knock2, I went with Keni Titus then Black Country New Road then finally fell deep into the inescapable pit that is alex_g_offline.

What tremendously sad music.

It was nice out today. Maybe a little sticky, but that’s been everyday for the last eternity it seems. I shouldn’t complain.

When I rounded the corner onto the westside highway, I didn’t want to stretch, I didn’t want to run, I just sort of wanted to sit down and do nothing. So I did just that.

Well I didn’t do nothing. I thought, and thinking’s definitely something, just not quite running something. Maybe it’s nothing-something, or maybe it’s something-nothing? One of my favorite nothing-somethings to do when I’m feeling not-quite-something is to leaf through my rolodex of something-somethings, just to feel a million-billion not-nothings—a universe of somethings—crash in on me all at once.

Memories of car crashes and break ups, college acceptances and lives abroad. If I smile or cringe or tear up or laugh, if it’s visceral, if it’s just something real, I’ll play it over and over and over and over again.

But today, for some reason, the usual suspects weren’t doing it.

I pushed deeper, dusting off memories from five, ten, fifteen years ago. Books long untouched fell off unkempt bookshelves, dusting my all-too-empty head with cobwebs and the passage of time.

Cutting class, sitting up in the trees behind my high-school, penning so many damn poems, sopping in youth and anguish—a boy growing into a sightly older boy

Trudging up snow capped hills, the euphoric call of yet another cancelled day of school, and all of a sudden, the perfect sleepover never ends

Waking up to the scattered songs of tropical birds and a warm yellow glow, both artificially produced by the sunlight lamp my parents bought me to help get me out of my stupid ass SAD episodes

Sitting across my sister over a bowl of Cinnamon Life, running fingers over the braided red metal of our kitchen chairs, paint chipping at the ends

And I started to cry. It was just too much.

It all felt so far; memories bleached by a sunlight so strong that the names and faces which once felt infinite had faded to characters, had faded to ghosts. Voices babbled sentences in a game of telephone spanning space and time.

The snow wasn’t cold, the trees had no roots, and the blood didn’t flow. It just was

It doesn’t even feel real, it all just feels like some oral tradition I’ve made up and passed down to myself year over year. Each time I open that scrapbook, I rewrite it just a little bit, fingerprints staining an aging collage of something that was once all there was

But then this little kid came over and sat next to me. I don’t know who he was or why he did but it was the single best thing that happened to me today.

He was 6, maybe 7 years old and was wearing a bright-blue Sonic the hedgehog trucker hat. He didn’t say anything at first. He just sat and looked at me. Something-nothing I suppose

As the adult in the room, I started with “Hi,” (well-spoken my friend) to which he pointed at his leg and asked me to “look at this hole” (it was a mole).

“Oh hey! I have one too.” He disagreed; his was very clearly a different color

Fair play little man

After sitting in silence for a just bit, his family walked over. Mr Sonic got up, ran to his mother, and turned to look at me with the biggest, goofiest little-kid smile plastered on his face:

“This is my entire family!”

We all smiled and talked like normal people do. And it was pleasant. I wished them on their way, and then got back to doing nothing, well nothing of the something sorts. Or maybe something or the nothing sorts.

And then, somehow, that stupidly rare magic of being a kid flooded each of those memories again.

And this time the finger prints didn’t disappear; they became subjects themselves. Each a different shape and size, mapping how my hands grew larger and harder as I grew taller and older. A tear here, some dirt there; browned stains of blood had dried up the corners.

Each memory wasn’t corrupted or expired; each story had been rewritten piece by piece, little by little. Penned by Mac today, Mac yesterday, Mac seven years ago—older and wiser, maybe, but it’s the same chicken-scratch all the way down.

I think I like remembering the bad things because everything turned out alright.

I can go back to that lonely blonde 3rd grader, head in hands, and join him at the foot of his twin bunk bed. I can give him a pat on the back reminding him it’ll all be okay. And I won’t be lying—it will be.

And his bright blue childhood room will be comfortably crowded.

It won’t just be me and him. Unc Mac is in the corner, and little Mac is on the floor, baby Mac is on the pillow, and dad Mac is in the door

And they’ll each have something to say to the sad little boy with his head in his hands.

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This all might sound a bit schizophrenic, but feeling a responsibility, really a camaraderie, to myself—both the me yesterday and the me tomorrow—has become cornerstone to how I think about what it means to be.

To use a more tangible example, less stilted on time travel and ghosts, it’s what keeps me going every day when I run.

Every time I start down the third pier of the west side highway, my feet or my lungs or my calves or even my stupid shoulder start to feel a little bit off, and the idea of cutting my run short crosses my mind.

I’ve devised a billion different stories to tell myself to stop this from happening:

If I stop I’ll get fat. If I stop I’ll be a failure. If I stop my Strava will be ass. If I stop the British will have really won (runs typically end near the Irish Famine Memorial). If I stop my lungs will feel let down by my calves (anthropomorphizing your body in parts is surprisingly effective—it gets weird out there).

And while all of these normally do the job well enough, the most fail-safe way to keep on keeping on is to remind myself that I already did.

I already did a million times.

I kept going last year in my half marathon and last week in my 8 miler and just a moment ago in this same damn run.

I kept going during late nights in the office and in the library and at my childhood kitchen table.

I kept going on the west side highway and on pine street and on new street.

He felt the same way I do now, and he didn’t stop because he knew I wouldn’t. And for all my shortcomings and weaknesses, the one thing I won’t be doing today is letting down someone I love—someone who’s already sacrificed something for me, no matter how small. We are all continuous functions, and what we do day in and day out is the integral of said function, so we literally can’t stop because they didn’t then and they won’t later.

So what does this have anything to do with memory? Did I just sneak some David Goggins into my liberal snowflake substack like a dog pill inside peanut butter?

Well actually yeah, probably. But, there’s a much larger point here. Life isn’t just about running, and it’s also not really about something at all, and it’s definitely not about nothing-something.

Life is probably more about everything-something.

It’s about running in the sun and in the rain and until your legs fall off; falling in the dirt and bruises on the elbows; tears in the shower and sunscreen in your eyes—something in the nothing and nothing in the something! It’s just about being and doing

No matter what nothings or what something you engage in, whether skiing or running, soccering or raving, writing or reading—even if it’s just sitting and thinking—do it together, with yourself and with them.

There will always be a million-billion Yous watching you do that nothing-something. Guiding your hand as you place brush strokes cast by consensus choice made years ago and years tomorrow. But if there’s a million-billion Mes watching on, that means there’s a million-billion people who care and a million-billion people who love me just the same. And you should treat these people just like anyone you love, offering support through their hard times and leaning on them just the same.

The bad news is that you will never actually meet these million-billion Yous. You can imagine yourself back in that bright blue bedroom or in the one-day lived-in family home, but you’ll never actually be there until that one fleeting moment when you are. And then you’re not and never will be again. But not all is lost!

The good news is, you don’t really have to. Because there are a million-billion everyone else’s going through a million-billion somethings and nothings just like you and me. I find one of the best ways for me to handle sad times is to think back on sad times. And that’s probably because it all turned out okay, but maybe it’s because when I do choose to look back, Mac from five years ago is already thinking about this act of charity I extended to my former self and passes it right along. When I’ve got my head in my hands, and my mind flickers to another one of me with his head in his hands, it’s not necessarily just Me from 3 years ago, it’s probably also me 3 years in the future, a metaphysically mind-bending eternal return of McCarron Jude Kincheloes. An infinity of Mes! An infinity of Wes!

And I think that’s what the little kid with the sonic hat taught me months ago when I started this piece. It’s not just me.

I don’t actually have to meet these make-believe Macs. I don’t have to create some elaborate mental gymnasium just to feel home. Because when I pull my head up, there are a million-billion everyone elses going through a million-billion somethings and nothings just like you and me. And these Yous and these Mes and these Thems and these Wes are everywhere to be found!

It’s your mom and your dad, your sister and your friends—lovers, acquaintances, lost connections and ships in the night. Kids with Sonic hats and dare I say even cats and dogs. They pepper our lives with more somethings than a million Mes ever could—a forever village teeming with moments in time.

When I started this piece, I was very sad. I didn’t really think it would end up looking like this at all.

And I think, when I page to that memory of Mac and that kid with the sonic hat, I’ll remind him that while there indeed are a millions Mes here for him, there’s also a very real village of very real people who know him and love him just the same. He just needs to take a second and really look.

And now I’m back on that first train, and it’s just as packed, and it’s just as unfamiliar, but someone just moved their bag out of the seat next to them and asked me if I’d join them. And I realized that little kid was right. This is my whole family.

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I wonder where Mac, at some hopefully very old age, will choose to page to in his last few moments.

I don’t know the answer today, but one day I will.

All I know today is that he won’t be alone.