Day three of the writing challenge prompts me to wake up an hour earlier to get time to write. If only it were that simple, I think, as I sneak in however-many-minutes as my baby plays in his jumperoo. I am at the complete mercy of a five-month old. Time and I wink at each other as we pass in the hall. We court as though divorce is imminent yet lust insatiable. When I wake up an hour early it will not be because I have the luxury to write. It will be the nudge of a rooting baby during my well-deserved sleep stage four.
My hour is pieced together in bits, like a quilt constructed over years during the quiet moments of life. Or the desperate moments. The grasping moments. I am grasping at moments.
Oh, time. Our relationship began long ago. The minutes stretch out for eternity during childhood. Days are as long as they need to be. Nights end on cue. Until school sets in and time presses down. Compartments are filled, boxes checked off. Then time becomes elastic. It stretches and contracts directly opposite to our desires or our control. It slips through our fingers just as we gain a glimpse of its immensity. One hour can contain a universe and a sharp turn for the worse at the very same time, even for the very same person.
Time doesn’t open up an hour for me every day. Instead I mine minutes at every turn, stacking them up in a rickety old wheel barrow so I can take them from a to b. Some are borrowed, some stolen. A few here and there are given. I am grateful for every one. Every one.
Every morning I wake, searching for it. Wondering where I am in relation to it. Wondering how I will manage to evade it today. Every night time tucks me in, sometimes forgiving, sometimes with not so much as a peck on the cheek. And as I sleep, time may check in with me to make sure I remember who is in charge here. Something tells me the relationship is overbearing and we need to break up. Soon, I think.
And then time appears on my face and in my body and I wonder if it’s not the one governing force of all the living world that leaves nothing whatsoever untouched. It makes time feel like an enemy. Or maybe it’s that we must befriend it wholeheartedly so as not to get caught up in emotions when we succumb to it. For we all succumb.
My exchange with times feels not unlike my journey toward 500 words. They are markers that measure me and my abilities. They make up my worth, to a certain extent. They are here to tell me that I must be more. And they mark my accomplishments. They are the paradox of a loving, hard-handed parent who only wants the best for me, though I’d never know it truly.