A Word on Wednesday: Time

It is the season of graduation. As parents we say, “where did the time go?” As teenagers and young adults, we say, “Finally! This took forever!” The more years behind us, the faster time seems to move past us. It’s funny. We can’t store it or stop it. It does not wait for any of us.

We can budget it, plan to use it wisely. We can live in the moment and cherish it. We can remain idle. We can keep busy to make the most of it. Still, we cannot stop its constant motion from present to future.

I often hear people say, make good memories! I have been prone to this type of thinking capturing moments in scrapbooks and, of course, in the written word. These pursuits hold time, transcend it. Yet, both rob us of the present moment as we yearn for yesteryear.

I am an off again, on again writer. I keep steady journals as the practice places me in the moment and sets my intentions, and makes sense of my days. It is a way to cheat the ticking clock. It is a way to withstand the constant forward motion.

At the moment, I am resting on the corner of my loveseat, one dog at my feet and the other on the couch across the room. I have a laptop where I hear the steady rhythm from my fingers running over the keyboard like a pianist plays a tune. I plunk, I backspace, and at times the words come fast and coherent. Spelling always slows me down.

Writing is bold, to assume a moment or idea is worth cementing into place rather than swiftly passing by. I am under no delusion that this practice yields anything that is valuable to anyone other than me. For me, though, I can reach flow state from time to time. In that state, time stops. I am not racing from activity to activity, thought to thought. During flow, I am a vessel of something much greater than myself.

In this season of graduation, new beginnings, happy endings, we mark a crossroads in time. We pause at the arrival of an award. We rest or celebrate for a spell. Then, we resume the pace. Carry on. Forward busy with our next pursuit. We will measure the year of milestone moments as a benchmark as to what came before and after. These landmark moments are a rest stop. A time to reflect on how far we have come and set out for the next leg of the race.