Time travel isn’t possible. Or is it? What about mental time travel?

Portals. Time warps. Wormholes. Parallel timelines. Strange vehicles with flashing lights and spinning dials. You’re probably familiar with the dozens of sci-fi gimmicks used to depict time travel, both into the past and into the future.

In real life, scientists also engage in more serious discussions about time travel. Many propose theories that involve obscure physics. But most scientists agree: Time travel isn’t possible.

Or is it?

What about mental time travel? Our minds are constantly moving — processing information, assessing situations, seeking solutions, dealing with internal emotions such as boredom, fear, or loneliness. Those emotions can trigger our minds to wander into the past — to people we’ve encountered, places we’ve seen, and events we’ve read, heard, or learned about.

That’s called memory.

Emotions can also take our minds to thoughts of the future. That’s called speculation. Or imagination. Or wisdom.

Join us as we journey into an inevitable future shared by all mankind… as we replay a past shared by the Jewish nation… and as we remember a faraway place of wonder.

Miriam travels on a…

Journey to... Old

Wanna travel?

Are you bored of Orlando? Been there, done that in the Rockies? Nervous in Amsterdam and priced out of EL AL?

What about some extreme tourism? Hey, for just a few million bucks you can skydive from Mount Everest or slide down an active volcano in Nicaragua at a brisk 60 mph, molten lava nipping at your heels.

Or you can forget about all these cream-puff, kiddie adventures and do something really challenging.

Really scary.

Come with me and let’s get old.

Regular Schmooze readers will remember our mother, Mrs. Rose Stark a’h, and her wise and witty epigrams. One of her favorites she often shared with us was, “I’ve been your age, so I can understand you. But you’ve never been my age, so you can’t understand me.”

Once again, Ma, you nailed it.

Getting old isn’t everyone’s favorite topic. In fact, it comes right behind death as something most of us don’t want to think about. So why bring it up?

Well, here’s the thing. Everybody is getting old, or at least older. Twenty-something newlyweds, 50-something oldly-weds, two-year-olds, and 80-year-olds. And the birthday boy turning 120 (“Have a good day!”).

Like it or not, we’re all aging, one day at a time. And there are lessons to be learned from the elderly, lessons younger readers can bring into their lives years before Botox, bionic knees, and titanium hip joints enter their vocabulary.

(Important note: For the purposes of this article, “elderly” means anyone who is ten years older than I am, no matter my current age....)