Taming Time

The heady fragrance of the lilacs lingering in the evening air is already tucked away in memory, and the blooms have dried and seeded on the branches. The ancient yellow rose bush along the south wall has dropped her petals with the quiet shyness of a three-score-and-ten year old flower girl in June. The hollyhocks are beginning to unfurl and they will have their moment of glory, their translucent faces cupping the evening sun. “The earth laughs in flowers” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). There is much merriment as spring has given way to summer, and though the blooms are fleeting, they bloom with abandon. Could it be that their fleetingness lends to their singular allure?

Earlier this spring, I was out on a run, taking in Spring’s awakening “laughter”. As I made my way home through a nearby village, I saw a police car parked at the opening of a side street, watching for those in a hurry. As I ran by, the officer held his radar gun out the open car window and called out to me that I needed to slow down. We shared a good laugh.

Sometimes I think I’d like to clock time as it speeds by and call out to it from my place of perceived authority to slow down. At what speed would the passage of time be clocked? “Time flies” we say. I’ve heard it said that time goes faster as we get older. Does time indeed fly or is it my own fluster and flurry that creates this sense of a frantic pace? And how can I keep a measured pace and still be engaged in all of life and living?

Late spring bloomed another gift with the birth of our third grandie. I got a text in the early morning saying they had gone to the hospital, and I waited and watched for updates all day. Time dragged. I was at a family reunion that day and I knit hurried stitches into the edging for the coming baby’s coverlet as my cousins and I clucked about life and living. In the evening, we gathered with some family for further connection and conversation. A fire crackled, chasing the chill from the room. Mom was comfortably tucked into a chair. We girls sat together with her exchanging the stories and harmless gossip that always emerges from a family reunion. A game of Scrabble was started, backs were warmed by the fire, and I knitted and purled more stitches while waiting for another update. My waiting was supported by this entourage of women, and at one point a sister leaned over and quietly said, “This is ‘Little Women’ right here”. Time slowed.

A text – “She’s starting to push”. Our excitement built while Dad processed this piece of information with a measure of amused discomfort as he straddled the gap between his generation’s communication style and theirs. And then more waiting.

It wasn’t until I crawled into bed that my phone lit up with the delightful news and a picture of our little grandson with the details of his name, weight, and length. Time stood still for a few brief moments the next day as we gazed into his sweet face.

“Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one… this is the only way to slow time: … I can slow the torrent by being all here.” (Ann Voskamp). Voskamp goes on to say that this practice of being fully present is a way of adding weight to a moment. This idea of being present, of enjoying the moment, is kinda trendy, but I need to remind myself of it constantly. The tasks and deadlines are pressing, and I can start feeling like I’m merely ticking things off a list rather than living in a way that is present and noticing. Those four big kids on the trampoline were all newborns in my arms not that long ago. Time did not stand still, and there were days when I may have even wanted to hasten time’s passage, but here I am now, cradling their children in my arms.

My 84 year old Mom has always said that she enjoyed each season as it came along. There was no sense of wanting to stall the years or freeze a certain time of life. Like most people at 84, she has lived through some hard seasons, but even in those seasons there has been a particular simplicity of living through and acceptance of life as it came to her. I like to analyze, wrangle with the angles, mull, and brood over the meaning of this and that, and I can only hope that some of Mom’s inherent wisdom of simplicity has been imprinted on me by mere proximity.

The sun cast long shadows among the orchard trees where I walked with little grandie nestled into me to soothe his evening tummy ache. Happy giggles were in my ear when I jumped on the trampoline with less little grandie on my back. Delighted exclamation from the biggest grandie when the flames of the fire danced in colour and marshmallows accidentally caught fire. Unhurried conversations around the embers. Nostalgia, regret, and fretting can threaten and distract from these ordinary bits of heaven and rob them from me and of me if I’m not vigilant. I wonder, rather than snuffing out the nostalgia, regret, and fretting, if they can, with their presence, add a healthy complexity to the flavour of the moments if they are held lightly?

Time will not be slowed by radar or policed by regret and fret. Time and the moments it offers are fleeting, but maybe rather than seeing the fleetingness as a flaw, we can lend the weight of our presence to these moments with abandon and treasure the ephemerality of them while they are with us. Time is truly a gift.