I have shared that the last few months have moved uncharacteristically slowly for me. I’ve been thinking about that, wondering less about why (that seems clear) than about what I can learn from this unusual slow down in life’s pace.
I suspect that the message is: notice your life.
I’ve certainly learned lately in abrupt, even violent ways, about how fraught everything is on our lives, about the way we daily walk the border between normal and extremely not-normal. It’s a short hop from awareness of life’s fragility to remembering anew that all we have for sure is now. I wrote about this many years ago: how sheer the veil is between this life and another. I wrote and thought about it then. I know it now.
There’s a reason I’ve long said that if I ever got a tattoo, it would say “be here now.”. As life’s crawled by since November, I find myself thinking about those words often. I wish I could say I’m here, and present, and engaged, but the truth is I’m the same person as I was before everything skidded off the rails. As aware as I am of time’s markedly slower passage, I am often still distracted, elsewhere. This always feel dissonant, of course, but lately, even more so. The persistence of life’s slowness has been nagging at me. This new pace doesn’t seem to be changing, and it seems to be pulling my attention to it. I’m sure it holds a lesson for me.
Time and its speed is a funny thing. It’s clear I’m supposed to be paying attention to this right now. Last week, one evening, I sat at my desk and watched the world burst into incandescence. This was unexpected after a day of clouds and rain. But the light was so notable that I watched it, and while I’ve seen many sunsets from my office window, this one was different. The clouds were lit from below. I shared a photo on Instagram here. Also, and what struck me even more, was that the clouds were moving faster than I’ve almost ever seen. I should have taken a video, it was that fast.
I opened my window and knelt in front of it, spellbound, taking photos and watching. It was over in a few minutes. And that made me think of speed, again: even in a life that’s slowed-down, there are moments that fly by.
Life flies and it crawls, and in the space between these extremes we live our ordinary days. For whatever reason – actually I suspect I know exactly the reason – this seems to be something I need to remember right now. Time’s always struck me as a sticky, elastic, complicated thing, both profoundly linear and irrevocable and deeply non-rational and full of pockets, potholes, and switchbacks. That’s never been more true than right now.
And so I do the only thing I know how to do: begin again. Look out the window. Take a deep breath. Think about my father and my father-in-law. Watch my children, who basically leave trails behind them because they’re moving so fast. Notice things. Be here now.
I love this wording: “Life flies and it crawls”
“Time’s always struck me as a sticky, elastic, complicated thing, both profoundly linear and irrevocable and deeply non-rational and full of pockets, potholes, and switchbacks.”
Your analysis of time is so poetic. I find time to be completely elusive. When you need it to go fast, it won’t. When you want it to slow down, it doesn’t. I think the “time” of mourning is particularly cruel. But it will pass… and time will speed up again. Grief is a very long season, but like all seasons, it changes.
Oh Lindsey. Your pain over your significant losses jumps off the page at every turn, and I am brought to tears often these days reading your posts. I’m so sorry! Speaking of tattoos, I have a story that you will appreciate. Dear, dear life-long friends of mine just got tattoos. First, the 80 year old father – LINADR – on his ankle. His 52-year old daughter then followed suit and got the same – on her wrist. She is a midwife in the Boston area – maybe you will bump into her someday! She is also trying to convince her 51-year old sister to get one too, but she says “no way!” : )
These are people who embrace life in every way – they are extremely engaging, charismatic, connected, helpful and happy souls. The tattoo letters stand for “Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal”. Pretty inspiring. Very similar to “Be Here Now” in my mind. Time for a tattoo? (Personally, I doubt I’ll ever be a tattoo gal, but this gave me pause!) Thank you for your writing, which I’ve closely followed for years.
I read this post early on Tuesday morning. Two hours later I got the news my brother-in-law had unexpectedly passed away. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer weeks before but his surgery went well and he was told he wouldn’t need chemo or radiation. He did have a blood clot in his leg from a previous knee replacement. Before the surgery he had a basket put around it to stop it from traveling during the colon surgery. On Tuesday he was at the hospital to have it removed. A routine procedure after which he and my sister planned to go out to lunch. Something went terribly wrong and he died on the table.
My sister’s in a state of shock. They met when she was 17 and he was 18. They are now 59 and 60. They were looking forward to retirement and grandkids.
For a long time now, ten years to be exact, after my cousin and closest friend passed away from breast cancer at the age of 51 I have lived every day as if it were my last. My husband and I have no retirement plans. We rode the waves and suffered the vagaries of the middle class economy over the years. The costs of healthcare, college for our daughters, job layoffs, all that stuff you read about in the papers. It hasn’t deterred us from seizing each and every day.
Today is all we have. Life is all this, including the hard times. And this week has surely been that. But in two weeks from now we will leave for a road trip we can’t really afford to visit our daughters in Colorado and Montana. Because this is our life and we all have to live it to the fullest, one day at a time. Be glad for the things you have and the people you love.
Margaret is right. Life is not a dress rehearsal and sometimes it can’t be overanalyzed for there are no answers to the unknowable. Just embrace it – all of it – the sorrow and the joy.
I wear a silver cuff with “be here now” imprinted. It reminds me to stop and breathe and notice- and it works. Some times I find myself feeling very centered, and then I think about the transition I will be in next year when my kids are both gone and I start to wonder…as we age and our children grow and find themselves it is easier to find the time to be present, but more difficult to face the reality of time passing. Our expectations must shift and our focus needs to move towards filling the time with more for US. Thinking of you as you journey through life’s transitions, now and tomorrow.