Keeping track of time

What happens to time really? Is it always there, always the same for you? Does it adhere to a universal standard? Why is it that sometimes there seems to be so much of it and other times none at all? What happens to it? Sometimes you feel it lingering around you. You watch the clock. It hardly moves. You’re waiting for something to happens say at two o’clock, but the clock’s hands seem stuck together at one, unable to push each other away and two o’clock looks like it will never come. You feel dismayed believing you will wait forever. Those are the tense days, the days when you’re waiting for something to happen, for someone to call, for the doorbell to ring, for a baby to be born, for your father or mother to pass away. Then time moves so slowly, carries so much weight.

Then there are the days when something is supposed to happen and time rushes by you so quickly you lose track of it. All my days seem to start in the same way. I wake up at six and play solitaire for an hour. Nope, I don’t play the seven-card game. I always play at my computer and it’s now always Spider solitaire. I didn’t get through the Free Cell. I got bored after playing so much of it and while it is more intellectually challenging than Spider, I still like Spider better. It wrought havoc on my mouse, once a smoothie, it became a toughie, got dirty, needed cleaning then needed drying and for several days it really would not work. So I thought I would have to replace it. Then suddenly last Monday morning it was working like a dream again. I could play Spider again and this time, so surprisingly, I played for two hours. Only I didn’t know it and that was okay. What’s there to do on Mondays anyway? I have no car. I just walk down to my Pilates class and that’s the end of Monday for me. I needed to do my laundry but I did not feel like. I have a long list of things I needed to do but just could not find the feeling for it.

Two hours of solitaire, one quick hour of writing my Morning Pages, a practice revived and enjoyed again. Once again I have a morning ritual. It is to write about anything, then to draw a rune and read its interpretation, then to read the date’s piece from Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance. I used to do this before my stroke and stopped it afterwards when I did not feel like. Now I feel like again and I am delighted by my ritual. These are my morning prayers. They make me feel good the rest of the day.

Then I have to water my flowers. Three of my orchids are in bloom, a fourth one has fat buds. After the watering, I knit in front of the TV until it’s time to get my lunch during which time I first turn into my maid, then my master, then my maid again to wash the plates. There are days when all these little chores are finished quickly and days when they drag on. I am caught in a series of days that just rush past me when time does not stand still but rushes past and I think I will lose my breath if I run after it.

Yesterday I was scheduled to have lunch with a bunch of my writing students at Mariel’s house. I thought it was twelve but when I called up Cynthia to ask her if it was the right day, she said it was ten. Well, already it was eleven so I rushed out and across town to get there at ten minutes after twelve. It was a lovely lunch with lovely readings. I was so happy to let the afternoon carry me away I forgot that I had missed an acupuncture appointment that I myself had set.

And since I forgot about that, time has been collapsing around me like a deck of dominoes. I seem to be always running after it as it swooshes so swiftly by leaving me behind, lost and bewildered, unable to do anything I’m supposed to do on time. I picked up my e-mail this morning, forgot to shut it off. I will be overtime on my e-mail bill. This is getting impossible. I bound to fall from all the running around after time I’ve been doing. In the end, did I answer any questions? Naturally, no. I still don’t know, still wonder about time. What is it really? Why is it sometimes there profusely for me and other times like now it runs out and I am panicked.

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Please text me at lilypad@skyinet.net or visit my website at www.lilypadlectures.com.