Quantum Leaping

As a child, taking the dog out for an evening tinkle, I'd sometimes note the stillness of the elm leaves of the tree out back, the trilling of the crickets, and I'd vow to commit to memory the exact time and date on my Casio sport watch, to write it down once I retutned to the house, and to keep that note with me for the rest of my life.


















I believed that some day I'd invent time travel and that, given the opportunity, my older self would journey back into the past to visit with me privately and share prescient advice.




Looking back, I'm not entirely sure what profound insight I could impart on my younger self that might have seemed at all worthy of the trip. And given how much one can change over the years, I wonder if I'd even recognize my older self, if I'd believe I was was really me.













And would I even be the same person upon my return to the 21st century? Would the encounter have convinced me to ask out that girl in high school instead of the other? Would I have been persuaded to take that scholarship and study engineering at the HBCU? Would I live in some farflung country, socialize with a different set? Would my own life be recognizable or even desirable to me?












I think back now as much as I do forward, taking evening strolls amid the hooting owls and barking neighborhood dogs, hemis powering through sleepy residential streets. I ponder whether I'm doing that boy with the leash and the dream justice, wonder if I'd be able to look myself in the eyes and say, honestly, that the best is still yet to come.


-Jackson