Time Marches On
There’s a hint of fall wafting in the breeze off our lake today. A teaser, of course. Next week, or the week after, or even on Christmas Day, we can have temperatures reaching toward the nineties and even beyond again. It is Florida, after all. But I still love the change of seasons and autumn décor is carefully arranged throughout my home while I remain ever hopeful for the humidity to drop, giving me a chance to go outside and pluck the overabundant weeds in our backyard. I tend to hibernate in the summer, dashing swiftly between air controlled environments: house, car, store, gym, office. So when the humidity finally, hopefully, leaves in late October or early November, I feel renewed energy and ready to tackle major projects again.
And so it is with my writing. I’ve been sluggish these last few months. Instead of working diligently, I’ve opted to take a couple of writing classes and let myself be guided in what I’ll write. I love being a student because I can follow a curriculum that someone else put painstakingly together to learn marvelous things. In the meantime, I pluck away at my chapters and find new knowledge to apply.
And all along, time marches on and drags me kicking and screaming with it. Oh sure, I know I need to get to cooler weather in order to be a go-getter again, but how lovely it would be to make Time spin in one place and allow us to get caught up with all the things on our to-do list! Like, finish the book.
Because Time is linear by our current concept of understanding, our actions are as well. Imagine placing one foot in front of the other on the path of our lives. We are limited by the time it takes to perform any task. We are bound by our bodies that need food and sleep and other forms of care. We are driven by our motivations, the importance of our daily actions beyond what our bodies need to stay alive and functioning. The motivations of accomplishing actions we derive the most satisfaction from and make our lives fulfilled. Yet, one foot in front of the other, always. We can never loop back to a place in time that was. Every precious moment becomes history as it passes along.
An option? Meditation. My friend Nancy and I make it a point to get together a couple of times a week to sink into Buddha’s words and allow our thoughts to pass along untended, much like clouds scuttling across the sky on a windy day. Our breaths are regulated to give us a small pause at the end of each one, an illusion of time standing still, of our minds being “empty.” A nanosecond perhaps, but enough pauses can add up to a well-deserved rest for our overactive neurons. At the end, we wish happiness for all beings, and a cessation to suffering, or samsara, in the Buddha’s definition of our constant dissatisfactions and our strivings for all the things we want to have and accomplish.
Like, finishing a book.
