There are times when I’m hit with a sudden, crushing realization of feeling profoundly alone, like I’m the sole rowboat adrift on endless expanse of ocean. Almost always, this feeling takes me by surprise, but whenever it comes up, I’m reminded that it’s been sitting there all along, waiting and collecting like the stillness of an underground cave. This sensation tends to be provoked when certain conditions align: an evening breeze rustling through the treetops, a certain fragrance and, of course, certain music.
The other night, I was out walking in my neighborhood at dusk and noticed that there was no one else in the street. Even before the sunlight began to drain from the sky, something about the arrangement of the clouds overhead made the deserted street below seem barren. The cloud shapes had a mountainous, megalithic quality about them. I felt dwarfed and marooned. I was also listening to a playlist that just so happened to reach a song that spoke to an inner lonesomeness.
On leaving the house just 15 minutes beforehand, I wouldn’t have been aware that was even feeling lonesome at all. But the combination of the visuals and sounds all stirred together and I found myself in a very familiar place. As usual, a pang of panic arose in me as the enormity of the solitude threatened to engulf my being. In the grip of that panic, time appeared to be rushing by. And I could feel the chasm of separation between me and everyone I’ve ever loved and cared about.
Most of all, I felt my daughter slipping through my fingers. Parenthood, I realized early on, when my daughter was just an infant, lulls us into the illusion that time is standing still. The daily routines, the walks to and from school, the mundane repetition of lunches and gymnastic tricks and colored-marker artwork and bedtime stories… all conspire to make us feel as we’re just floating in time and space. There’s a prevailing sense of abundance — even over-abundance — in having all these precious moments and points of contact as part of your everyday rhythm.
The truth, however, is that time is actually moving at warp speed — advancing so fast, in fact, that it induces a kind of false sensation of gravity. Of course, when I first became a parent, many other parents I knew stressed this fact. Over and over, I was serenaded by the refrain “be sure to enjoy her time as a baby, because it goes by so fast that she’ll be much older before you know it.” I don’t typically pine for the time when she was a baby, but I do get struck by the fact that her kid-like mannerisms — the adorable mis-pronunciation of words, etc — are fading fast.
Interestingly enough, I’ve lately been feeling very grounded in the satisfaction that “Wait, I am there for her.” And whenever we spend time together, I find myself basking in the residual glow, our presence in each other’s lives and hearts like a solid plank under our feet. But at that moment on the walk, her life felt out of my reach. Not only did it hurt like hell, but it amplified the melancholy to an almost unbearable degree. So I turned the music up and put the same song on repeat just to dwell in it for a while…
Just a few days prior to my walk, a memory from a couple of years earlier came rushing back. I remembered my daughter and me in the bed that took up almost the entirety of my tiny apartment. Between the ages of 2 and 4, we would snuggle side-by-side at bedtime and watch a children’s movie. One of these films was the animated classic Finding Nemo, which has a scene where the fish characters of Marlin and Dory end up inside of a whale.
In between the action shots, there’s a fleeting sequence where all you see is the whale swimming by and some underwater views:
Film composer Thomas Newman scored this sequence with music that’s almost incidental — it’s there to add emotion to visuals that would otherwise hit viewers as dry and neutral without it. The theme he wrote for this part, titled “Haiku,” doesn’t echo the main themes from the rest of the score. It passes quickly — all too quickly. The first time I heard it, the poignant swells of strings imprinted themselves on my sense of gratitude at being able to bathe in the simple joy of watching a movie with my daughter.
There were also other feelings that had seared themselves into me as well. I listened to “Haiku” again the other day and it was as if I were re-living the clutter that I’d allowed to overwhelm that apartment. A tidal wave of grief washed over me, and I burst into tears. I sank into bed, laden with guilt, like I’d been unable to provide the basics for her. The image of us watching Finding Nemo — usually a cherished, joyful memory — was streaked with tragedy. I felt bad for both of us. Tears ran down my cheeks, the sobs grew more intense, the words I’m sorry arose through quivering lips.
Back on the walk, after a few repeats of the other sad music from my playlist, the feelings of desolation, sorrow, and despair gradually began to ease up. Thankfully, I don’t often end up spending too much time in the chamber of my heart that houses those feelings. Mostly, to be honest, I feel great about parenting lately. But I do think it’s a good idea to pop-in to that chamber every once in a while to remind myself that it’s there. And when the feelings come, I don’t fight them. They don’t tell the whole story, but they’re integral to the story.
Time to go pick my kid up at school!
<3 SRK