Missing time
Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 9:25PM 
There is never enough of it, never enough to gaze into each other's eyes, to get lost in the warmth of the hands, to talk about nothing and everything. Somehow it is not minutes that fly by, but hours and entire days. How is that possible? Exactly what does one have to do to waste time so masterfully - when it seems like time is at a stand-still, and yet it is on a fast-forward track - in the same moment? Like rain drops - it slips through my fingers - so that I know I had it, because my hands are wet, but I can't seem to be able to scoop enough of it to fill in a whole cup and drink so that I'm completely full. Wait, no, to fill in a whole keg and get completely drunk, so that I would want to skip it, would want to jump ahead, to have seconds fly by, formed into hours, into weeks. If such a thing is even possible.
I look at the clock and I hate it. I hate its very guts, the levels and wheels and arrows and batteries - all those mechanical pieces that make it tick. I want to grab all clocks and smash them against the ground, toss them down from the roof and gleefully cheer when they break apart. Watch the sun hang on the horizon and stay in limbo, in no time, forever. Freeze. Pretend like time doesn't exist. But, wait, maybe the sole fact of the time passing is making it so desirable, this game of chase - of always wanting more, of never having enough. Maybe, if there was enough of it, it would make it very boring? Maybe the beauty of not having what I want is making it so very precious to me? Maybe the fact that it is always moving - is making me want to stop it? Is it keeping me hungry for more? Is it turning ordinary minutes into special ones? Is it stealing my imagination and leaving me with a simple desire to pause? To stand still? To defy the flow and be in the now, dissolve in the moment, feel alive? I don't know what it is, but I only know I always wish the clock wouldn't turn so fast, wouldn't tick so loud, wouldn't make me look at it in the fear that I missed something important. And, what could be more important than wasting the time?
Missing it. Missing time. Getting surprised by how fast it passes. Trying to analyze the why, and the when, and the how, and ultimately giving up all of this - for wasting more. Because it feels great - and it fills me with happiness. So maybe it's not the droplets of water that pass through my fingers, but it's a waterfall that I am watching crash on my hands, each time its flow changing just enough to keep my eyes on it, but never stopping so I keep looking at it, fascinated. I don't look up, to see where it is coming from. I don't look down, to see what it dissolves into. I only look straight ahead of me, and I lose sight of everything except what I see in front of me, what I feel, what I smell, what I hear. Nothing else has any meaning or presence. It's gone. It doesn't exist. It's not important. I stop existing. I become one with the moment.
I don't feel if it's cold or hot, if I am tired or not, if I want to sleep or not, if I am hungry or not. I don't even feel my body, or forget whether I am standing or sitting down, or where I am, or where I was going before, or where I need to go after. Reality throws itself for a loop, and what seemed so clear before, has evaporated into nothing, but I don't care. I feel nothing but love. There is so much of it that I can touch it. It's thick and enveloping, warm and silky, soft and tingly. I get lost in twisting it around my finger, like a cashmere scarf that is impossibly thin yet fluffy and textured. I can stretch it all around me, and I can roll it up and fit it in my pocket. I can twist it around my neck, bury my face in it, and I can toss it into the air and watch it float down, like a giant petal, before catching it again with my hands and climbing under it like under a blanket. Sleeping in it like in a layer of trust - that only love can hold. I forget all about life, I get lost in this game, when - boom! The alarm clock tears through. Time again. It passed. It's over. Things need to be done, stuff needs to be taken care of, commitments need to be honored. And so I have to let go of the dream, I have to accept the fact that there is never enough of it - never enough time. And maybe I like it like this, maybe I want this to continue. There is something precious about it, something other-wordly, something naive, something from the past. Some forgotten state that I thought I'd never experience again. I was wrong. I am smack in the middle of it now, and I love every second of it.
If only it didn't pass by so fast. If only I had more of it, somehow. Not enough.
Photo by Nicki Varkevisser.
Reader Comments (4)
Wonderful, beautiful writing. I really agree with each piece. The alarm clock bit at the end is just perfect.
Oh, thanks so much, Nicki. It's dreadful, isn't it? I wish it would never ring... But it does, life continues, it never stops :) we're just having a hard time accepting it sometimes.
The metaphor of using water to describe the properties of time struck me on such a profound level that it left me in a state of euphoria - simply brilliant.
Thanks love:)