It used to be that if I had an appointment at 11:00 in the morning that I would incorporate it into my lunch schedule. I might get to work a little early and depending on the nature of the commitment, I'd grab something to eat on the way back to the office or just eat something at my desk. Not a big deal. Yesterday I was about to make up a pot of coffee to linger over with a visitor when I realized that I had 20 minutes to get to an 11:00 appointment. I was wearing my tee-shirt from last night, cotton gym shorts and I was barefoot. It used to be 11:00 came just around lunch but on that day it arrived shortly after breakfast. It's not always that way. In fact it's always different and I think I know why. Time is a liquid flowing in unique and incomprehensible ways.
It isn't a liquid we can consume like beer but we can drown in it. It can wash us away in a raging torrent or we may end up becalmed with no wind in our sails to move us along. There are steady currents and trends that, if we begin to understand them, may aid in our navigation. But it is complex beyond our ability to understand, constantly changing and occasionally surprising. The single major constant is movement, mostly in one direction. Sometimes we are aware of the drip, drip, drip of seconds falling out of a clock in a quiet room as we watch someone sleep. Other times we are pushed off our feet by a firehose full of days or weeks and we wonder if we will ever get a handle on what all has transpired. We can be surprised when we discover a whisp of time has stuck to us and we revisit a moment that has already flowed past or more strangely something that hasn't, but could be downstream, waiting.
Someone with a strong understanding of fluid dynamics may have a better idea of how it all works, or what to expect from time. Me? I only have a few clues and stories that may help understand some of it. I think of old sayings that work for both time and water and my favorite is 'you can't step into the same river twice'. Time works like that, doesn't it? Even in those days at work when it seems like the tasks we did the day before are on our desk once again or it looks like the wall we painted has to be painted once more, there are differences. When we start planning on continuity and stability, the pattern changes and we are drowning once again. I walked down a narrow desert canyon once where the stream was flowing clear and slow, rarely deep enough to flood over the tops of my boots. I drifted into a walking meditation, Zen in the canyon. Multi-colored sandstone walls twisted around me, keeping my hiking companions out of sight and the sound of their passage away from my ears. A soft down-canyon breeze pushed the quietly applauding willows around and stirred up the scent of organic mud, flint and a sweetness of distant blooms. My pack was comfortable. my stride was regular and just as I was about to accend to the next level of consciousness, I stepped off a rock into a knee-deep pool disguised by sediment stirred by an eddy in the stream. Twisting and falling, trying to keep my camera dry and not break my bones, I ended up on my ass, cool water washing away my dignity as well as that cosmic train of thought. Laughing waters for sure.
Time and water came together at that moment but I wasn't ready to understand. Something about keeping my sleeping bag dry and being able to survive in the wilderness started nagging at my mind. The water didn't do anything different than it normally would, I just didn't see it. Now that I think I understand more about it, I'd probably still end up on my ass. I can't increase my ability to both think cosmic thoughts and walk in a stream. During that disorienting fall a flood of time washed over and around me, filling my world with enough time to think of how I was about to land, the importance of keeping the camera dry, if I was going to need to get someone's attention if I was damaged, who the hell put that hole in the river and why was the sky such a wonderful shade of dark blue against the yellow canyon wall at this time of day. No one else felt that same flood of time. It wasn't confined by the canyon walls like the stream and could have been moving in any of several directions. Regardless of the direction, straight up from the core of the Earth, downward, sideways or hopscotching along like a rook, it changed my capacity for experience and moved along.
It would be wonderful to be able to control it, dam it up, channel time along nice confined routes that benefit our world but it is a primal thing that can't be contained or controlled. Hell, just don't tell me it's other than normal to not see the knee-deep pools until we are drying our butt on the warm rocks as time and the stream chuckle.
It isn't a liquid we can consume like beer but we can drown in it. It can wash us away in a raging torrent or we may end up becalmed with no wind in our sails to move us along. There are steady currents and trends that, if we begin to understand them, may aid in our navigation. But it is complex beyond our ability to understand, constantly changing and occasionally surprising. The single major constant is movement, mostly in one direction. Sometimes we are aware of the drip, drip, drip of seconds falling out of a clock in a quiet room as we watch someone sleep. Other times we are pushed off our feet by a firehose full of days or weeks and we wonder if we will ever get a handle on what all has transpired. We can be surprised when we discover a whisp of time has stuck to us and we revisit a moment that has already flowed past or more strangely something that hasn't, but could be downstream, waiting.
Someone with a strong understanding of fluid dynamics may have a better idea of how it all works, or what to expect from time. Me? I only have a few clues and stories that may help understand some of it. I think of old sayings that work for both time and water and my favorite is 'you can't step into the same river twice'. Time works like that, doesn't it? Even in those days at work when it seems like the tasks we did the day before are on our desk once again or it looks like the wall we painted has to be painted once more, there are differences. When we start planning on continuity and stability, the pattern changes and we are drowning once again. I walked down a narrow desert canyon once where the stream was flowing clear and slow, rarely deep enough to flood over the tops of my boots. I drifted into a walking meditation, Zen in the canyon. Multi-colored sandstone walls twisted around me, keeping my hiking companions out of sight and the sound of their passage away from my ears. A soft down-canyon breeze pushed the quietly applauding willows around and stirred up the scent of organic mud, flint and a sweetness of distant blooms. My pack was comfortable. my stride was regular and just as I was about to accend to the next level of consciousness, I stepped off a rock into a knee-deep pool disguised by sediment stirred by an eddy in the stream. Twisting and falling, trying to keep my camera dry and not break my bones, I ended up on my ass, cool water washing away my dignity as well as that cosmic train of thought. Laughing waters for sure.
Time and water came together at that moment but I wasn't ready to understand. Something about keeping my sleeping bag dry and being able to survive in the wilderness started nagging at my mind. The water didn't do anything different than it normally would, I just didn't see it. Now that I think I understand more about it, I'd probably still end up on my ass. I can't increase my ability to both think cosmic thoughts and walk in a stream. During that disorienting fall a flood of time washed over and around me, filling my world with enough time to think of how I was about to land, the importance of keeping the camera dry, if I was going to need to get someone's attention if I was damaged, who the hell put that hole in the river and why was the sky such a wonderful shade of dark blue against the yellow canyon wall at this time of day. No one else felt that same flood of time. It wasn't confined by the canyon walls like the stream and could have been moving in any of several directions. Regardless of the direction, straight up from the core of the Earth, downward, sideways or hopscotching along like a rook, it changed my capacity for experience and moved along.
It would be wonderful to be able to control it, dam it up, channel time along nice confined routes that benefit our world but it is a primal thing that can't be contained or controlled. Hell, just don't tell me it's other than normal to not see the knee-deep pools until we are drying our butt on the warm rocks as time and the stream chuckle.
Thats one of my fav sayings, you can never stand in the same river twice. Weather it be you and/or the river who have both changed.
ReplyDeleteI know from experience, Torrey Pines beach is the same way. Everytime we go, its like going to a new beach, you never know what your going to see.
-h
PS- welcome to blogging