Today’s #reverb10 prompt wants to know what I have come to appreciate most this year and how do I express my gratitude for it. (Thanks Victoria Klein).
One word: TIME.
With my new dedication to my work, along with my family additions, time has compressed itself into carefully negotiated nuggets. On weekends, when Colin and I occasionally stumbled across an hour or two of unplanned time, we usually find ourselves wondering around in it.
No, that isn’t a typo. I do mean WONDERING!
The Time Tango
This year, time materialized in all the small projects I desired to do and the places I wanted to be: Turkey Bingos and Game Nights and lazy summer afternoons at the pool; recycling events and coat drives and knitting groups.
Time poked at me whenever I gazed out at the weedy, overgrown garden that needed planting, and picking, and watering and just a friendly visit.
Time brushed by me and said “well I’ve got plans: places to be and people to see. Are you coming or what?”
Time goaded me into planning parties I didn’t want to have, then guilted me out of those I wished I could attend.
Time showed me middle age in the mirror, woven with lines and grey hair. Then Time said kindly that it would be OK if I took an extra bit of him to drive to Norwalk for a nice haircut now and then.
On those rare hours when we were alone together in the house, Time covered me with the fleece throw. Then he tossed his friend Caution to the breeze, lifted my feet onto the coffee table and whispered sweetly: “Go ahead, sweetheart. Waste me!”
Time dragged his feet up the hill of responsibility, then coasted madly back down the other side, remembering suddenly that youth is a state of mind.
Time plotted activities on calendars and measured itself in tablespoons and inches. It multi-tasked: it reminded me I can fold the laundry while the pumpkin pie bakes. I can chase and play while I rake. I can knit and watch TV.
Of course Time made sure I made it to yoga. At least once a week anyway. Time gave me some space. He waited in the car for me and played with my iPhone.
Best of all, Time laid down and rested at the end of day. He put his aside the insistent, linear drive toward death. Instead he got drunk on the brain’s capacity to tumble through unbounded space.
Time went wandering in dreamland.
(My pics were captioned by an awesome app called “Photo Notes Free: Captions for iPhone and Facebook.”)
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