Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell
"Time takes a cigarette...": I was born in 1972. Almost 44 years has passed for me, and I am now in that stage that folks call "mid-life." It is a time for reflection (and crisis perhaps), a time when wisdom is supposed to take root (we all know to watch out for these "supposed tos"), and it is a time when often the next stages of life are forced upon us (when we are no longer allowed to be taken care of but when we need to be offering the care). In the 40s, the body begins to lose its elasticity, and the reflexes slow a touch; injuries seem to not heal quite right, but we feel like we should still be in command of it all... And the 50-somethings and 60-somethings just chuckle when I say this... like they know more and aren't telling... Is this how we measure time, in our hair line and laugh lines?
"...puts it in your mouth...": So much about how time affects us seems to be more about our perception of it than of its actual passage. I've been reading up on how our system of time was most likely developed, and much of it goes back to ancient civilizations; the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Concepts based on how many joints can be counted on a hand and numbers easily divisible by others led them to 12s and 60s and eventually seconds, minutes, and hours. The observations and cleverness of people many thousands of years ago led to a pretty orderly system of measuring the passage of that thing that Einstein hinted at being less than constant in extreme circumstances. (Relativity freaks people out!) Orbits around the sun, revolutions on an axis, cyclical patterns of gravity were forced onto us by our very existence, yet we are afforded roughly four or five score trips around a star to figure out what we need, to live how we want, and to perhaps make it all better than we found it as we go. When you are young there is so much time ahead that the fear of a loss of it is not as constant as when you start losing it. Once you have been around for a while, what remains becomes more valuable; the worry over losing that value can be crippling if not put in its proper place...
"...You pull on your finger...": But it is not the measure of time that affects us nearly as much as our perception of its rate of flow. I remember the weeks, then days into hours that led up to Christmas-eve celebrations in my house when I was little. Our house would be transformed into a candle-lit sanctuary from normalcy—from the days at school and work and dealing with all the hard parts of growing up. Holidays in my house were far from that normalcy. Darkness all around with the hope for cold and snow outside, contrasted by greens on the mantle and banister, and flickering flames on the tables and eight foot tree just topping out at the ceiling of the living room. Little lights everywhere and presents to be given and opened. Such wealth of love, and warmth, and "stuff"—added to a an intimate dinner of picking-food served outside the normal space of the kitchen or dinning room—made Christmas-Eve one of the best events of the year! Deviled eggs, banana bread, strip cocktail, cheeses & breads, herring salad (yuck), cookies, crackers & dips, and wine were the menu served buffet style. We ate by the tree, plates on our laps, all around that magical timeless escape from the mundane. No phone calls were allowed in, save the one that inevitably came from Opa. What a night! And the weeks leading up to it slowed; and the days before were anxious, and the hours, torturous. The only redeeming part was that Christmas Day was as lazy as a summer day in the country with nothing to do for miles around... Lazy until he waves of guests arrived for a late afternoon dinner and desert in front of the crazy German family's candle-lit tree. Time seemed to stand still in those moments after arriving home from church on the 24th in the early evening until the next afternoon. But the time leading up to those moments slowed and crawled until it was almost unbearable... Perception is everything, despite what science tries to tell you!
"...then another finger...": What about those times when we in deep within the fun—whatever it was—and time flies so fast that the reality of a setting sun, or a parent picking us up from the best play-date ever, brings disappointing awareness. Or what about those miserable moments where we try to measure time with footfalls on a dreadmill, or counting feet forward with a 50 pound pack on in the cold pouring rain knowing there's still 2000 feet elevation and four miles to go, or in repetition of a mantra to move forward in time (not sop much as to find inner-peace). In the darkness of a night where anxiety and discomfort chase sleep and reality into the corners, and the clock seems to hold on each moment long beyond the seconds and minutes afforded to it. Or what about the transformative moments when we get lost in a story, and then leave the theater, or put the book down only to realize whole weeks, months, years, had passed in a matter of hours, blissfully lost or gained (depending on your perspective) in the name of adventure...
If I could save time in a bottle The first thing that I'd like to do Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away Just to spend them with you —Jim Croce "Time in a Bottle" 1972
"...The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget...": And then I remember to breathe, to keep my feet on the ground, and feel the earth beneath my weight, imagining it humming as it spins and circles in far greater patterns than I can fully perceive in my smallness...
Section Headings: David Bowie "Rock in Roll Suicide" 1972
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