Off the Clocks!

Dear Maria,

Greetings from the Land of Slow Time! Hope all is well with you and the family. No, not rubbing it in, honestly. Actually, that phrase is not quite accurate—the passage of time is, at times, still fast, too fast.

Now that the pace of my day is not regimented by an outside agent—bells no longer tolling for me—I move about as I wish, attend to matters or don’t as I so choose. Except for doctors’ appointments. Those are confluences of space and time not to be denied. Ever. Most days, if I am idle for a few moments, or even longer—no problem. Curiously, even as I slow my pace, the days zip by and the weeks still hurry along. Greetings from, paradoxically, the Land of Slow Pace and Fast Time.

Looking back, has it been six weeks since we last spoke? Has it been more than a month since my birthday? Already four days after sitting with former colleagues at the game Friday night?

All so fast, until I want something to happen, and then the anticipation flummoxes my temporal rhythm. Looking ahead to a rendezvous or a holiday or a celebration, I embrace saying just two more weeks or at the end of next month or three months from now. I save myself a disheartening dose of yearning by not saying in 90 days, or even worse, in more than 2,000 hours.

I am a fan of the phrase in three sleeps rather than 3 days or 72 hours. But, when looking out longer, wising for something to happen, I think in three moons has a nice, sort of poetic feel to it.

Of course, sometimes I dare to imagine life beyond an orbit or two around the sun. I can’t abide thinking 730 days, no matter how fast they seem to go. Even 24 months makes me scowl. Nope, not calculating the hours.

So, how about two leaf-falls? Just twice more, the leaves turning as a few are now, with the attendant raking and smoky haze over piles about the neighborhood. Two? I can do two of anything.

Let the seasons unfolding, days at full tilt, take the measure of what will come.

Yours, and not counting, but always, srk