Last night I got a message on IG from @h0plessly.dev0ted Tara Blossom Johnson saying she had a layover in NYC and asking if I could meet for coffee. Of course I said yes! We’ve followed each other on IG for a while, so naturally a coffee meetup sounded great.
As our orders were filled she told me about her flight and her time in Canada.
Then she said, “Hannah ... First, which Hannah am I talking to, now?”
That was a bit of a shocking question, but I suppose it makes perfect sense. “I’m the version of me born in 2002. I’m not shifted right now.”
“Okay.” I guess she could tell my mind was racing, so she added. “It must be interesting switching places…”
I nodded. “We’ve switched a few times… Kent and Shay are shifted right now. I guess never knowing when or who… makes things stressful.”
Then I told her about us realizing this week that we were finding memories from our other versions mixed in with our own memories. She was surprised by that—as are we.
“Do you really ‘feel’ what the other Hannahs feel?”
I tried to explain. “I don’t really know. I have the memory of the 1858 me being denied a job at the hospital because I’m a woman, and that feels terrible. But is it 2002 me feeling based on 1858 me’s memory? Or is it the same? More and more, we are thinking we are copies of the same… person… I know how it makes me feel, but I can’t say if it is…”
Tara finished my thought. “If you are the same essence of being, then you feel what the other you felt, just the same…”
I nodded, and she said, “What about me? Do you just know me from reading the IG comments, or do you really feel we have a connection?”
For a long time, we talked about how the world has changed, how people can be friends with people they’ve never even met. We discussed how the Internet allowed for bonds and friendships that transcended geography.
“It’s,” she said, “a real relationship despite the fact people have never met in person. Some never meet, yet the bond is real.”
I agreed.
“Speaking of connections,” she said, “How do you connect the other Merritts? What’s going on with that metaphysical bonding you talk about?”
I tried to explain the bonding. I told her that after the three of us shared that dream so long ago, I felt instantly closer to Emma and Merritt. They explained their experiences with it from when they first met. It is an almost palpable sense of closeness.
“Then, when Merritt and I were dating, and I switched, all of that went with me. I guess that was our first evidence that each version is essentially the same person. What I felt for the Merritt here in Brooklyn, I felt for the one in Memphis. And the same is true with Kent. The one here, now… My feelings seem to just transfer.”
Tara smiled and shook her head. “It seems a little…”
I nodded. “For sure, the body is the same… okay, given. The longer we’ve gone, the more we believe this soul is the same. The difference is in the memories. This Kent doesn’t remember our Thanksgiving day. Yet… We’ve not worked out exactly how sharing memories work…”
We talked a long time about what I remembered from the other two versions of me. She asked about specifics regarding the 1858 me, and suddenly I found a memory of her… me… and that Kent walking arm in arm through the Appalachian Mountains in 1984—obviously a couple.
Tara smiled. “So, every version of you is in a relationship with a version of Kent!”
We discussed that a little, then she asked, “What about this mysterious figure, that came out of the shadows, to warn you? And, don't you ever try to find out who is sending the cheques?”
I told her what we thought about all that. First, that this shadowy figure has appeared from nowhere leads us to think that whoever is behind all this has some way to shift through space, at least to create the perception that things exist before us. But our shifting has only been consciousness, so we don’t have a definite answer about that.
“We’ve looked into the source of the money. There’s a network of private companies.” I shrugged. “Honestly, that’s something we should probably look into more.”
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