Author: Michelle

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
Into the future

–Steve Miller Band

Time is a slippery concept, especially if you consider quantum physics. Which, to be clear, I am not equipped to do.

It doesn’t take an Einstein to understand that time is relative, all it takes is memory. Think about the nearly infinite last 5 minutes before the end of the last day of school in the third grade and then compare that to the entire last 10 years.

If you’re over 40, they probably seem to have taken about the same amount of time.  Just getting older makes time go by at an ever escalating rate. How often do you hear a 5 year old say “isn’t it Christmas YET?” while a 50 year old says “I can’t believe it’s Christmas again ALREADY.”  Is that just a question of proportion? The month before Christmas is a bigger percentage of a 5 year old’s life than it is of mine.

No, I’m not going to calculate it. Why? Because, math. I don’t even look up facts in my blog–do you really think I’m going to do math?

Anyway.

NO. I’m not going to. It would be easier if years were on the metric system, but there’s an awful lot of dividing by twelve and thirty-one and stuff.

Sometimes I want it to slow down. When I think about how slowly time seems to pass when I’m bored, depressed or sick, I think maybe I can fool myself.  When you are doing a lot of things, time seems to go by  more and more quickly. So sometimes I do…nothing. I read a book. I pet the cat. I make tea. I watch old movies. I just exist. Just to see if time slows down.

It does, but just a little. Not nearly as much as it does if I’m depressed or sick. Bored? It happens so seldom…I just don’t get bored. There is always something to read or think about.

Meditating when my knees hurt seems to work, but you can’t count on that.

Being miserable works too, but it seems like a high price to pay for slowing down time. Same with being sick.

So, what, we just have to live with it? Like death and taxes? It’s the price for being entertained easily?

I’m not sure that’s exactly it, but I think it’s close.

People who have things to occupy their minds probably see time speeding by. They’re enjoying their lives, their friends, their families. They have hobbies to occupy their minds and their hands.

The ones who get bored don’t have those resources, or don’t take the same amount of enjoyment in them.

All in all, it’s an excellent trade off.

Dans le dérisoire I’m lost
Dans les accessoires I’m lost
Dans le feu des possibles I’m lost
Au cœur de la cible I’m lost
–Noir Désir/Lost

The other day in the car, I was scrolling through a list of songs to find one called Lost, and what I found was a lot of songs that started with love.

Just like everything else, right? Almost everything starts with love. If we write about what is important to us, then clearly love is going to be at the top of the list for most of us. It’s reflected in the number of songs written about it. Poems. Novels. Movies.

Love and loss.

They go together.

You will lose everyone you love, every one of them, in one way or another. Death or disillusionment. I don’t mean that in a sad way, but it’s inevitable.

I think a lot about loss and being lost.

I’ve written about my fondness for getting lost before. Getting lost, or losing something or someone is sometimes a good way to find out who you are, what you like, what is important.

Sometimes, a loss is just a loss. Or maybe sometimes it just takes longer for the good to show itself.

No matter how you look at it, life is full of loss. People leave. People die. You lose jobs, friends, possessions, love. Somehow we all have to get past that in order to live your life.

Sometimes, it’s not so hard. There’s an obvious or immediate benefit. Rain, rainbow. Most of the time it takes some poking. Some letting go.  But like leaves, how do you know when tenacity is in order and when it’s best to let go?

Do you ever, really?

 

Somehow I don’t believe that those last leaves clinging to the trees are there by coincidence.

It must be something.

Stubbornness.

Strength.

Or maybe it’s the other way around?

Maybe they aren’t strong enough to face their destiny and cling out of desperation. Too weak to let go.

Hanging on or letting go?

Which requires more out of you?