THE RAW NATIVITY OF TIME

There in the Kids' Playroom in the big hotel across the lake (Echo and Kasumi having quietly gone off to look at the shops), from out of the strange unawareness that can creep up on grandfathers I suddenly realized that I was alone with three small granddaughters - two of them twins, no less - in a large and richly toyous room where the only drawback was a major one: there was only one of each toy.

As a result of that experience, I am more aware than ever of the strong correlation between age and the speed of time. Toddlers live in time's deepest regions, where an hour from now is a rumor in another world. It came to me, as I watched the pinching and hairpulling events roiling around me in a cloud of hypotime that I'm generally at time's other extreme, where years are mere fragments of all that has gone before.

This time differential can create problems for green grandparents abruptly plunged into the depths of toddlertime without practice or protective gear, but I've had front line experience: I have taken the twins to the big toy store, alone. I have beheld time in its raw nativity, its strobelike diversity, its exhausting richness and sharp-cornered velocity, where each second is a day of experience, the frozen clocks only adding to the confusion, and I have returned, only slightly misshapen.

Still, I'm not going back to that Kids Playroom alone with them until I get a lot younger.