Time

Busy, busy, busy. So much to do, so little time. Like being in an army of ants marching to and fro, to and fro. So busy and confident that what we're doing is vitally important. And that our little universe is all that exists...

And what is time anyway? Besides an odd construct of human beings? Invented to help us measure and mark the passage of our days?

The baking of bread. The programming of TIVO (which I don't have but include so as to be, well, inclusive). The number of candles on a birthday cake. Airplane departures. The end of class. Due dates for library books. Time to get the teeth cleaned. The oil checked. The pap. The mammogram. The prostrate (another thing I don't have, but do want to be inclusive here!). Time to rise and shine. To watch the news. To have a glass of wine. To make dinner. To call a friend. Or mail that birthday gift. Time to get to soccer practice. To the movie. Time to plant the bulbs. The tomato starts. The seeds of change...

Time to move on to what I was really planning on writing.

But, not before making a note to myself:

Hey Debi, perhaps you should come back here at some time and revisit the above? Expand upon it? Write about all the ways time insinuates itself into our lives--like nothing else, perhaps, comes close to doing. About how we've created time only to end up becoming slaves to it...

Time to check in with my son who has just walked in the door. Or not. I guess it's time for him to check in with his new girlfriend.

Ah yes. Time.

I've been wanting to come here and write about so many different things. It's an interesting conundrum actually. The more you experience (whether good or bad)--the more you have to write about, but less time to write about it. The less you experience (whether good or bad)--the more time you have to write about it, but less to write.

Is that true? (I just sort of made it up as I was going along.) But maybe it's worth a consideration. When we're reading what someone else has written, is it possible that we are only getting the middle of the road account? Because the people really in the thick of it don't have time to make an accounting? Maybe the accounting we're getting is either from those moderately in the thick of things, or from the bystander's perspective? Leaving out--not all the time of course, but often I would imagine--the perspective we most need to hear, read, see, understand?

Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't given it a great deal of thought. But I'd like to.

Been away from the Cafe for a few days. Was here on the computer for so long with the last couple writing projects, and with trying to respond to emails regarding them (which I enjoy and consider important, but which is also a somewhat daunting and time consuming task), and with trying to stay up to date on current events, and... Well, I just sort of felt toxic from spending so much time here at the computer.

Time at the computer. Maybe I should take a picture. Always nice to add a little visual right?
Anyhow, so much of my time has been spent here at this little desk, sitting on this hard little chair, squinting in front of this little monitor, skrying for meaning, that I've needed to detox a bit. (Not to mention all the other things/people I've been neglecting lately.)

Yesterday was a rewarding case in point. In the amount of time I WASN'T on the computer I was able to take apart my malfunctioning (for over a year now) toaster oven. And fix it!! I'd figured I would just have to buy a new one. But with a screwdriver and a little resourcefulness, I was able to save $50, a small little chunk of landfill space, resources, air/water quality, transport fuel (whether to buy a new one or transport the old one to the landfill), etc. Lots of things saved and gained by just taking the time and initiative to try and figure it out on my own. And a good lesson for the kids who were watching. It was so much fun in fact that I'm thinking about hanging a shingle, and fixing other people's broken appliances. It's not the first time I've fixed something like that. But my favorite was probably that time a few years ago when my husband was laid up with a broken leg and I fixed the washing machine. That was REALLY rewarding. I had to take the whole thing apart. And when I put it back together and it worked? Wow. What fun. There've been other times. A pencil sharpener. Light fixtures. What have you. Maybe it's a calling. We'll see.

Interestingly, I was even able to accomplish this with only a mediocre result on that 7th grade math assessment I took (before asking my daughter to take it) yesterday.

There were 25 questions. I got 17 correct. Which, according to the evaluation, meant I was likely to exceed Grade 7 standards. Oh joy! Actually you can miss more than half and still be expected to likely meet Grade 7 standards. This math thing is a whole other subject for another day.

What the test taught me was that I don't remember how to measure angles.

But if my life--up to this point, and beyond my public education--had required that I know how to measure angles then I'm confident that I would be able to do it easily. It's just that my life, all 23 years post testing, has not required it. Or I've figured out how to do something another way. I should build my own house. Then I'll learn lots of things.

Like I said, it's a subject for another day.

And it looks like it's going to be another day before I get to write any more, as it's time to go pick up my car (wish I didn't have to as it's car free day here in Ashland). After all, it was time to get the brakes replaced.

Till next time,
Debi