Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Pink Floyd - Time (Live, Delicate, Sound of Thunder)
A month ago, I was in my grandmother's arms looking out a window that I didn't know was a window, watching snow that I didn't know was snow. I knew no words. I only knew tone. And the tone of the woman holding me made me feel safe and curious as to what the fuss was all about, all that white out there in the place beyond the glass.
I don't even remember hugging my grandmother. Just that moment of being held.
Three weeks ago, I was in a dark movie theater leaning into my boyfriend and feeling the distinct sensation of a tongue against mine for the first time. I'd read dozens of books wherein girls decried it as gross or slimy or disgusting.
Me? I just wanted more. A whole lot more. And now.
Two weeks ago, I was dancing with a stranger in a club with too much sensation for me to stand it while my then-boyfriend watched. Glitter on my lips, tightness across my hips, and he was asking, "You want to go somewhere...?"
I didn't say anything. I didn't have to. I was dragged away from bad decisions. And now I wonder... were they?
A week ago I was adjusting my parents' old wedding bands on a white fluffy pillow strapped to the arm of my three-year-old-soon-to-be-nephew. We didn't put the real rings on the pillow because we were pretty sure they wouldn't make it down the aisle. Mom still had the old rings, even though my parents divorced a long time ago and my father wasn't even at my wedding.
But maybe it would have been just fine. Little nephew took his job very seriously. He liked to crawl into my lap while I wore the dress. No kid had ever done that to that point nor have they done that since. I don't remember walking down the aisle. I do remember telling him he'd do a great job.
Three days ago I woke up in a hospital bed after seeing my grandmother on the other side of the veil and told my sobbing husband that I was sorry about that whole near-dying thing; wouldn't happen again.
A promise I hope I can keep.
Yesterday I was sitting in the floor of my kitchen beating my head against the cabinets because I'd been stupid enough to get involved with someone who decimated my heart and my trust in myself and people.
A few hours ago, I changed my life entirely, toes to eyelashes; sleep to waking, and I healed the hurt and remembered why I am here.
A moment ago, a horrible pandemic gripped the world and shuttered me in my home - the very place my anxiety has been telling me for years that I need to stay because only it is safe. I've been fighting, fighting against that evil voice only to be told by authorities... No. Stay.
Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you
Caught up in circles
Confusion is nothing new
Flashback, warm nights
Almost left behind
Suitcase of memories...
Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
This is day 17 of being at home and being more or less terrified of... everything? Scared this won't it, scared it will. Scared plans will continue as they were, scared they won't. Scared to touch my face, hug my mom, see my mom, and to bring in packages from the front porch. Scared to open my phone lest it explode in a cloud of miasma and terrible news. Forced, however, to spend my days diving head first into the soup of anxiety and shame and terror as, well, it's sort of part of my day job.
Today I find myself pondering time. How all the memories seem to exist at once, though I'm older/younger/slimmer/wiser in them. It probably doesn't help that I'm tearing through my To Be Read pile, and most of it features my recent fixation on young adult literature. YA books are all about the Firsts: first love, first heartbreak, first confession, first journey, first failure. Makes me think of all of mine and how many there have been and how though people keep telling me I'm young, I can tell they're being kinder and kinder about it.
It's the time of the season When love runs high And this time, give it to me easy And let me try with pleasured hands
To take you in the sun to (promised lands) To show you every one It's the time of the season for loving...
The Zombies - Time of the Season
I Journeyed (in the Shamanic sense) a week ago, and the messages that came back were long, loud, and varied, but the main one was this: people over power. In this time of uncertainty, of fear, of gazing into the abyss of the prisons we've built for ourselves, the machines to which we have bound ourselves, hand and foot, the cycles we are doomed to repeat... Promote people over power. Love. Kindness. Generosity. Caring. Consideration. Concern.
Give, don't merely take.
Relationships are connection, not transactions.
The way to fight off the darkness is to be a spark of light, and we do that every time we think kindly of another. Do a good deed. Put our little, vulnerable hearts on the line and openly and freely care about someone else.
And it matters not a whit if they respond in kind. The doing and being the spark is the reward.
All those little firsts... the good ones that make us swoon and the bad ones we didn't let ruin us... Little sparks in the night. Yellow and orange and red embers.
The fires need stoking.
If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
'Til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you.
Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle
I suppose I'm looking over my life to see how I got here. I am examining the building blocks, so carefully laid and then rearranged by tragedy and then healing. I'm shoring up the foundation to be more stable.
I am remembering who. I. Am.
And I am first and foremost a creature of Story; I am made of words and connection. It's my own little fuel mixture to keep me going, going, going. And all those instincts tell me that now is an Important Time. I will want to know where I was for this in fifty years.
And to remember, we must tell stories.
Is it any wonder I've got too much time on my hands?
It's ticking away with my sanity
I've got too much time on my hands
And it's ticking away, ticking away from me.
Styx - Too Much Time on My Hands
So maybe I will try to write a bit every day: hey, how are we, where are we going, what will we be once we get there? Not sure it'll work or happen, but one can try.
Today I am working. From home, in my office, wherein I have set up a second machine near my main one. I am surrounded by all my Things of Memory and Inspiration. Through the blinds is a day of sunshine, fair weather, and spring. The husband is away at work, and he said it himself, "Today going outside feels like an act of bravery."
And it is. One that is required of him by the terms and conditions of his current employment. Right or wrong? Who knows. We're grateful for jobs. We're trying to keep up. Stay steady. Move forward. Think of how this will eventually end leaving us with something... if not new, then changed.
My people are good - working, all, in varying ways; at home for the most part and keeping heads above water. All over the world, they are, and checking in.
Tomorrow there will be stories - hopefully, the ending of one six years in the making is coming soon. I will share it and move on to the next.
Read, dance, walk, bathe, remember that we're all the same. Remember that we're all different.
Tell the ones you love that you love them.
I love you.
Just stop your crying
Have the time of your life
Breaking through the atmosphere
And things are pretty good from here
Remember everything will be alright
We can meet again somewhere
Somewhere far away from here
Harry Styles - Sign of the Times
In a few minutes, this too shall pass.
<3Dee