There are so many different sorts of time.
There’s the time that goes whoosh, simply by in a flash, and you’re left scratching your head and wondering, where did the time go?
If you work in a busy office whole days go past like this, whooshing, while we run after the minutes and hours, and sigh at the speed of the hands on the clock, how can it be 11 o’clock already? Time seems out of reach, running faster than we can hope to catch up. Continue reading
To notice.
To slow down.
To connect to landscape.
To see trees moving in the water.
To pay attention to flowers.
To feel gratitude and wonder.
To tell the time. Continue reading
So, I was driving to work this morning.
I mean, I was trying to drive to work this morning, but the morning, it kept on interrupting.
Look at me, it said, like a cat, rolling in front of my feet to stop me going out the door.
Look at me, it said, as the sun caught the frost rising on the hollow.
Look at me, the morning said, as the mist draped on the hill above the farm.
Look at me, it said, as the sunlight turned the earth-fields amber.
Look at me, said the morning, and stop a moment.
Turn off the engine, and get out of the car.
Stop for a moment. Look at me.
There was nothing for it.
I had to stop, pull over, drink in sunshine, breathe in earthlight, fall in falling, soak up morning.
Look at me, said the morning.
Up high, way up high
Lost in the open empty landscape of the uplands
Way up above the the highest village
Way up beyond the voices of what should have been, what should be done,
What should be made and written, crafted painted
Way up beyond the should have learned by now, should remember yet, should pass on teach and earn successful, Continue reading
The traffic’s always busy here. I can see ahead to the lights, unchanging, and know it will be a while. Nowhere to go, nowhere to move to, nothing to do. The busyness of the day, its frustrations irritations, its too many things to do and not nearly enough time, its rushing to get through things and your head birling and bursting with messages and conversations, slowly, very slowly, start to unwind.
Then:
Some combination of the time of the day, the angle of the sunlight, the point in the year, the spot where I’m stuck in traffic, some combination means the late September sunlight is streaming through the driver window.
I feel its warmth.
I feel bathed in it.
For just a moment, just the time it takes for those traffic lights to turn, I am bathed in the warmth of this golden late September light.
It warms me. It softens me.
The busyness of the day is gone, forgotten. Petty irritations, frustrations, gone, forgotten.
This is it, this is the moment of the day.
Just for a moment, for the time it takes for those traffic lights to turn, I am the person who is bathed in this golden warmth of late September sun.
I am warmed, softened, grateful. I am stuck in traffic, softened grateful, warm, human, here.
I do not know what grace looks like. But I think perhaps it feels like this. The sudden kiss of warmth when you’re sitting in traffic, enough to melt the grip of busy, enough to bring you: here.
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