Clocking the Calendar

It’s Friday! Yay!

Or

Oomph, it’s Monday…

Or

Only 3 more hours…

Or

Forty five minutes more is way too long!

Is it just me or does time have this fluid quality to it that makes little sense? How does an hour race by, yet another hour drag?

And wasn’t January just last week? But wasn’t January ages ago?

What makes the difference in the perspective at which time appears to move?

Like the tree in the forest falling and making or not making a sound, if no one sees the clock ticking or cares what the calendar says does time still move?

I suppose even ancient civilizations tried to corral time and seasons by charting the sun’s movement across the sky. We too attempt to rein in the days and years with meaningful markers that assign structure to the uncontainable force of time.

People dream of traveling through time as if it’s a vacation destination or a malleable clay waiting passively for reshaping.

Then those déjà vu moments throw our thinking off kilter, making us wonder if time does bend and flex and fold. I’ve never cared for that sensation. One “time” in particular still sticks with me even after nearly forty years.

I’ve wondered, awkwardly, if I’ve experienced that crucial moment multiple times as a chance to finally get it right. But I don’t believe in stuff like that!

Waiting. Hurrying. Wasting. Losing. Looking back and looking forward. Reminiscing. Regretting. Wanting more. All things we do with time or wish we could do with time.

I think time does the doing and we ride its crest or tumble uncontrollably through its wake or float along in its gentle waves. But we and it are, apparently, always moving.

Or are we?