Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. 8 months for you, I’m told, but just over 3 years for me. Thanks to everyone who has written, followed the blog, sent your thoughts and good wishes, and generally been interested in what’s been happening to me.
I returned here three days ago, traveling from 1936. I did indeed travel to 1933, met my Grandfather, and somehow survived the experience of being tossed into the past. The fact that I had been warned and prepared for the trip was what saved me. I’m not sure I would have lived through the experience. Don’t get me wrong, 1930s America is a civilized place, there’s simply not the safety nets or systems to keep someone from slipping through the significantly large cracks in the society of that day.
My expectation was, if I traveled to the past at all, was that I would feel myself slipping into the “mist” as I call it, a “fuzzing out” of reality and a slow sharpening back in when I arrive at the new point in time and space. That’s what it’s like. I feel subtly disconnected with reality, a kind of depersonalization a few seconds before the light starts to dim and everything around me becomes increasingly more indistinct. When my entire world seems to be the inside of a cloud, shadows start to show themselves, then shapes, and then the world returns to clarity in a few seconds. I’m not sure what it looks like from someone else’s perspective, since I haven’t talked with anyone who has seen me disappear or appear. I expected to return to the physical world near Belton, a short walk away from my grandparents’ house.
I was wrong.
On that day in December, I was driving to work and had just gotten off the 15 in Mira Mesa, when I started to feel the “mist” coming on. I swung into a parking lot, speed-dialed Molly’s cell, jumped out of the car, opened the back driver-side door and grabbed my leather go-bag, a leather, 1950s vintage briefcase that I hoped would pass for the proper period piece in the 30s (it did, by the way). I started to tell Molly that “this is it,” – I was feeling like this was a big trip, but before I could get the words out, the world went away. When it returned, I wasn’t anywhere near Belton, but seemed to be somewhere close to the spot in Mira Mesa where I had disappeared. I was in a field of scrub brush near San Diego, California, and without the benefit of landmarks, couldn’t tell exactly where, but it somehow felt close to the place I’d been in 2008. I had traveled many years into the past, but not far at all in terms of geography.
I realized immediately that I had a long trip to Belton, Indiana ahead of me. The only problem was, I’d left my car in 2008.
I’m not here indefinitely. Dan tells me just over 2 weeks, so I’ve got to be judicious with my time. Over the next few days, I’m going to try and give you a brief account of what I went through in 1933, and share some things I feel compelled to tell you about. I have to warn you, it’s not all good news.
More tomorrow.
