Time and Space

Today I got a notice from one of the online family tree sites. It, for the third or fourth time, let me know that a good friend was one of my missing family members. What was lovely about this error is that she is family in my heart; the other people to whose presence I was alerted are kin whom I am coming to know. I am pleased to meet them as I have, on both sides of my family, only 6 cousins in toto. It is fair to say that on the immediate Jones and McKinney sides of my family we have rather weak rabbit stock.

I mentioned to my friend, Cathy, that her presence on my family tree was a cosmic reminder of how much I love her. Then I said the following: "Though you be far away in time and space..." and I realized that this phrase has gone by in our Internet age. She lives in Manhattan and I in Seattle, but my email reached her in seconds.

I have lived long enough to have seen TV go from 3 stations to more than I want to count, from well-censored presentations to simulated sex, pornography and bleeping bleepedy bleeps. Men have walked on the moon. Governments have toppled. American women have run for president; a black man won the presidency to the excitement of the world. But over tea, of all things, some folks have decided to be uncivil about his new role. The Arab Spring has nothing to do with flowers blooming. Talkin' bout a revolution! An economic catastrophe in one country is the shot heard around the world. That's trickle down around theory for you. It's a brand new and unimaginable world. And one of the most unimaginable parts is that we can learn about everything via a thing called the Internet on smartphones or computers in most places - even those where people are starving - in milliseconds.

Time and space are, as it happens, fascinating continua. They are carrying us along with them. So Cathy is my family. And I was able to let her know it without a second's hesitation.