December 2014

old man time is as fierce as he ever was. if anything this past week has taught me is that old man time is wicked. and unrelenting -he ravages our bodies and steals our dreams out from under our pillows. he is the never ceasing black hole that tries to stamp out the light that emits from our hearts. older than the world itself, he tries to age us all, blot us out, making our hearts as heavy as stone so that we fall away into the night letting go of the small tendrils that keep us tied to the here and now.

there are days when i find myself giving into this frenzy that old man time brings. i am convinced he is the true inventor of the internet, the true genius behind the seconds that blend into minutes that blend into hours and days where life is wasted and forgotten. as much as i try to slow down, life keeps spinning forward anyway, and i am left with a threadbare lace that disintegrates as i try to sew it back together.

annie dilliard wrote in her book, The Writing Life:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

and i find it so so very true. and timely. and real. and as honest as it gets for me -it also true for what we witness and how we react to it. it is true for us in this instant age of the internet. and true for those of us whether we are ignoring the march of time, tentatively stepping along, or joyfully pouncing forth into each day.

i think, as modern, western cultured humans, we believe that having more of something, more of everything, more of life, that this more will help us leave our imprint; it will help weigh us down and and aid us in leaving our lasting mark on this world. however, as i age, i am ever so convinced that it is the less, the lighter we walk, the less we hold onto, this is what truly helps us live into the life we are given.

and in this lightness, this is where we make our soft imprint on the world, blotting out the void of old man time and the absence of meaning he threatens us with.

as i enter the fray that december can be, as i try to make things perfect in a very imperfect world, i will be trying to allow this “spending of my days, is how i spend my life” be my mantra.

“how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

i will be trying to make this be the thread of my days.

i cannot control this old man time, nor can i avoid living a life filled with what i make of it.

but i can chose how i spend my my days, and allow that to be how i spend my life.
xxoo -rebecca