What is time? What is time for?
The measurement of a breath, the space between breaths.
Sleeping, waking, toil, and play.
The passage of a season in planting, tending, harvesting, and preservation.
The celebration of birthdays, holidays, moments of intensity.
The currency of our lives.
In the time it took for me to mulch my tomatoes, a family of sparrows hatched and fledged from an abandoned harvest basket on our porch. The sparrows and I were busy with the same work – toiling with the materials at hand in an effort to feed our families. The sparrow children grew up faster than ours, though some days, it feels like it may have just been a week ago that ours were born, too.
Time stretches and contracts. It is constant but not consistent.
Once I heard my Tibetan Buddhist friends say that time is our own creation.
They weren’t talking about creation in the Biblical sense, of dividing the day and night. They were talking, as they often did, about perception, and our perception of time. In this age, when busy-ness is glorified and nearly inescapable, it’s worth consideration.
If we didn’t create the way we look at time – who did? If we didn’t decide how to use our precious time – who does? Who tells us whether “time is short” or “we have all the time in the world”? We do. We learn it early on, from others who have learned before us. And we are given training in schools to unify our perceptions and hustle when the bell rings, regardless of the task at hand. We are not taught to question this perception, and it takes a substantial degree of study and reflection to re-train these perceptive reflexes. Here lately I’m thinking it’s a worthy effort.
There are never enough hours in my day. I’ve heard myself say and think that phrase over and over. How exhausting! It’s high time to break that habit. Not that I will all of a sudden get everything done that I hoped to do in a day, but maybe I will be relaxed about the fact that my life is full. It’s full of beauty, food, friends and family. Full to bursting with the stuff of life and love. What is time for but to love?
Last year, as we tapered off our writing habits, it felt like there was just too much going on to be able to write about it and be honest. And of course there wasn’t time.
Now, it feels like there’s too much going on, and to NOT write about it wouldn’t be honest. There’s no more or less time than ever. But I have missed this place to share thoughts at hand, visions, the beauty of life out here, so I’m choosing to take the time.
Because, this is another important thing that time is for – sharing.
So glad to see your new post as time
does have a different pace sometimes
than what you’re used to. Learning
to count my blessings rather than
the hands of a clock. Certainly worth
consideration as a daily focus.
Thanks for sharing.
Love, Sally
hope you are taking it easy sally!!!
Time is ever precious, and even in the best times, kept close to the heart to review and cherish. As we age the moments seem long and short at the same time, and we relive and enjoy the time in our hearts and minds repeatedly. Life, a river. Love, the only thing that matters…
swim in that river with all your love. thanks for reading!
thank you for taking the time to share! you have yourself a beautiful life there!
likewise sage. hope your summer is going sweetly.
so happy to see you posting again. I have missed your insightful and thoughtful posts
thanks nancy. see you soon?
Thank you so much! Glad to read you again. It felt like a gift to see your blog post in my inbox… You are so right. I want to remember and share with my husband and friends! xox Sending love your way.
thanks for reading – it feels good to put something out here again. peace be with you and yours.
Good to see you’ve come back. All of your posts are good –I told my fiancé, ‘New York Times’ worthy. A special hello to Robin and family!