Time

my snowman from Berry Tales :)

I try to recall the details of early December of last year – what I was doing, what worries I had – funny, but I can’t remember much negativity. I know something was there annoying me, concerning me, but, I obviously got through it. This lack of recollection makes me think about time and its magical effect, its purpose, really. I think of the figurative concept of moving through time – it carrying you forward as it washes away the troubles and concerns, leaving behind the good stuff – like little pebbles on the beach after the tide rolls out – smooth and shiny and brilliant from a cleansing; that’s what’s left of December 2011. I think of the early days of last December and I feel happiness. The twins were about to embark on a wonderful journey then and I know I was filled with apprehension and worry, but now, I just naturally go to that place of happiness, omitting any negativity that was running parallel to the good stuff that went on and I attach myself to that state where I felt happy. Hmmm, those pockets of peace restore us and time protects us, perhaps time is Nature’s Prozac.

 

It seems time is a gift in many ways. It heals, we all know that - and it sometimes washes away the things that are not so pleasant, leaving behind those that are – those memories that we need to keep, the ones that allow us to go on in gladness, for we must go on. It’s built in, this spirit we have to move ahead, to get better and to look forward. Like I posted before, we all need something to look forward to, whether it is a big event like a graduation, a big move or just a simple moment like the green beans sprouting in the garden – something good to anticipate - that keeps us healthy and  makes us happy.

 

I suppose time tweaks our memories a little – those days of childhood were probably not as gleeful as we “remember” but those “photo shopped “memories give us happiness now and what could be wrong with that? The bumps and bruises will all heal and fade away and , hopefully, we will all be left with a rich golden resin that was our childhood, one that we somewhat mimic for our children. Time is our friend.

 

I write this because it is nearly Christmas; it is the Christmas that you will reflect on next year and in the years to come. These moments are so fragile and so over anticipated and in 2012, so over done – Christmas has become the biggest retail extravaganza in the world. We have come a long way since the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; now it’s diamonds, Apple, and Mercedes. I hope we can all disregard most of that hype and understand that those things will most likely be forgotten; time will not keep a list of material things. It will, however, help you to remember the warm wishes, the still and cold night when you look up at the vastness of the Christmas sky, the afternoon spent in the kitchen with a child, the smell of cinnamon and evergreens, the macaroni ornament from someone’s first grade year, and the fleeting moments with the people you love. Time will only leave behind that golden resin that was this Christmas.

 

b u

p s

 

chinese proverb

The weekend is winding down, as a matter of fact; this blog entry will be the last cognitive task I will perform until Monday morning. The week end was a good one but I find myself being robbed of time – I cannot seem to accomplish as much in a day as I once did and it is such an unpleasant realization – this is not what I imagined, this getting older stuff. I have had to lower the bar just a bit on what I hope to do during the day. I suppose this will become a normal setting for me soon but for now, it is a funny feeling. To counter this bit of less endurance I am going to rev up my plan to simplify and try to get rid of some of these shackles that I acquired in my youth. I am appalled at the amount of stuff I have – ashamed really, these things are nothing but anchors in my life – things to see about, things to rob me of time and money that I have to spend maintaining worthless pieces of inorganic material. I don’t care much for TV but I like to drink a cup of coffee and watch House Hunters International in the afternoon – enjoying glimpses of faraway places and cultures. I am always taken with the amount of small spaces international buyers are okay with and, in contrast, the enormous amount of space Americans “need”. We are leaving such big footprints and as I’ve said before, I played that game in my youth and I am so regretful. I regret it on all levels – the most being the example I have given my kids. Lucky for me, however, it seems they are, for the most part, not overly concerned with materialism, they are much smarter than me  – anyway, there is a Chinese proverb about planting a tree, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”  I missed the first train but I’m jumping on board now.

just an image from long ago  that makes me happy







b u

p s

now

It’s so wonderful now, now that it doesn’t matter if the paint is peeling or the whatumacallit is broken or if it is rusty or squeaky or missing or crooked; it only matters that it is there and that I have time and energy to clean it. To tidy it up. I have given up trying to replace things that are old and used; I now enjoy them. I have released this wasteful preoccupation of my youth where I thought the surface of things, literally, were important enough to have (steal) my time and my money. I love this place I am in now, it is so much more comforting and pleasurable and it is as it should be. The patina should wear off of the tables just as I lose the color in my hair and the arbor should lean just a bit from bundles of wisteria that were once there just I lean ever so slightly from the weight of motherhood and 56 years of life. It is how it all happens, time and wear, bending, breaking, but with it emerges a deeper splendor, one that is so much easier to be with than the beauty of youth, not as exciting perhaps, but far less anxious and demanding. I like it here.

 I think about my grandmother and how she lived in a tiny two bedroom house with one bathroom and a wringer washer where she raised 5 children and then my mother who had a three bedroom house with two bathrooms and an electric washer and dryer and only 3 children. I remember how my grandmother, her mother, would fuss about having so much when she would come to visit – so many clothes, so many things. I have more than my mother and having more means having less (time). My grandmother had time to sit on the porch every afternoon to visit with whoever walked by or stopped in; my mother had coffee nearly every weekday afternoon with her best friend, Flo. I, rarely do either of those things – too much stuff. Okay, I have to stop, I am depressing myself. I will work on this; I am determined to spend this chapter of my life beneath the surface.

Their They’re There

It’s not that hard

b u

p s

January

I loved the imagery that follows in this poem and wanted to share it on this last day of January. Already, one month is gone, never to come again. I have to be more mindful of  my calories, my money, my words, my energy, my thoughts, and my days and how I chose to spend them. I have been wreckless with all of the above at times; I have yet another day, another gift, to begin again.

I just put this here because I love this picture of Lennon and I do think of how suddenly and without warning his music stopped.

"January is the quietest month in the garden.  ...  But just because it looks quiet doesn't mean that nothing
is happening.  The soil, open to the sky, absorbs the pure rainfall while microorganisms convert tilled-under
fodder into usable nutrients for the next crop of plants.  The feasting earthworms tunnel along, aerating
the soil and preparing it to welcome the seeds and bare roots to come."
-  Rosalie Muller Wright, Editor of Sunset Magazine, 1/99

b u
p s