Dear Tivo...

We are creatures, by nature, that get swallowed by time. Time, in itself, is written about just as much as love. We are all, perhaps, control freaks in that way, and at some point, usually when we are adults, we surrender. We know we can't manipulate time. We know we can't change the past. We learn and emphasize the future.

Sometimes we are foolish and try to run away from our past -- even though it may haunt us, unformed syllables, sentences and thoughts we cannot form or we won't allow ourselves to finish. We grow up, we become wiser at letting go. . . letting go of the control, letting go of the time, letting go of the past.

Time swallows us whole. Wrapped up in technology, hamsters spinning endlessly on a plastic wheel, we resign and distract ourselves with daily rituals. To-do lists, events, text messages, emails, cell phones, hellish commutes. We trick ourselves. We trick time.

And then the phone rings in the darkest part of the night; you eat a spoonful of cookie dough ice cream; you smell a plant in bloom on your afternoon bike ride; it's grapefruit body wash in a bathtub filled with bubbles. . . and then you trick time again, because suddenly, you experience a moment where no time has passed.

As soon as it's there, though, it's gone, and you're left with the sour taste in your mouth, dizzy with deja vu, wondering if any of it was really there at all.