For the month of January, I’m participating in Bloganuary, a daily blogging challenge.
Today’s prompt:
If you could, what year would you time travel to and why?
This is a prompt that caters to the fiction bloggers, the fantasy writers, and the history enthusiasts. My mind first goes to the different ages in the past that would make for an incredible story, like the medieval period or the Jurassic era. My story likely wouldn’t be very long, though; I’d probably meet my fate very quickly!
Also, I really enjoy my personal hygiene routine. I like being clean, and going too far back puts that regular cleanliness in jeopardy. Oh, and the whole lesbian thing. I greatly appreciate being able to be out of the closet, with the freedom to love another woman openly in public, and not be terrified it will get me killed.
So maybe traveling to the past isn’t when I would want to go. Perhaps I should look to the future.
Is it an acceptable answer to say “when COVID is done”? I’d love to fast-forward to that year, especially since I’m sitting here at my computer, on my 5th day of self-imposed isolation, after a softball teammate from the tournament last weekend tested positive this week.
Looking further into the future, I’m not sure I have a good answer. If humankind is able to reverse global warming, maybe I’ll consider it. But I suppose I won’t know unless I visit the future. I’m just not overly keen to take that risk.
Maybe I should be stubborn and simply refuse to answer today’s prompt. Maybe it’s more important for me to stay in the here and now. That is, after all, what I’m struggling with the most when meditating. Ach, but that response feels like a cop out.
Thinking sentimentally, I have my answer. I know when I travel to: 1999. I would visit Baba, my maternal grandmother, before she got sick with progressive supranuclear palsy.
I would let her know that even though she never talked about her experiences surviving the Holocaust, I’ve learned her story. I would tell her I’ve learned how she was an incredibly strong and brave bad-ass young woman, who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And how I’ve learned that she kept her tales of horror a secret from her family, not to keep us in the dark, but to ensure that we were able to live in the light.
As a kid, I always saw my Baba as a weak, worrying woman. Today I know differently, and I would love the chance to go back in time, give her a knowing hug, and thank her for the strength that I carry in my genes because of her.
My Memory List 