Blog, Essays & Art

Time to explore. 07/01/03

I'd been expecting Great Change to suddenly be staring me in the face. Instead, I have realized, gradual changes have snuck up on me. It is not like the cat jumping, pouncingly, boiinng!  into your lap when you'd been so intent on staring at the screen. It is more like hearing soft purrs in the room behind you then you turn around after a while and see them sitting there watching you quietly, as they have been for hours.

I look around at my life and every day has brought me farther from who I was, into who I will become. I feel like a former caterpillar testing new wings, a kitten slowly growing into oversized paws while scampering clumsily about.

So what does the immediate future hold? I know this much: this Summer is for acting upon all the ideas, tentative directions and decisions made during Winter's hibernation and Spring's restless feverishness. With stored-up energies and re-awakened enthusiasm, I aim to venture forth into SCA events, job searches, increased physical activity, strengthening friendships. It has been proclaimed: This is "THE SUMMER OF THE BARBECUE." I think it will indeed be memorable.

Well, my preoccupation with the concept of Change may be over. I am now more into considering TIME...

A year ago or so I gave up wearing a watch. Partly because the battery gave out and I procrastinated about replacing it, and also because I realized how surrounded I am by timepieces -- clocks on walls, computers, microwaves. Other people going around stressing about what time it is and so on. And little need for me to be on time for anything. I do not much care what time it is. Morning, Lunch, Afternoon, Evening, Dark, Bedtime. That's all the time-divisions I want, really. But then I started having to ride the bus much more frequently. I start to wonder if I should go out to the bus stop when the work clock says 8:05, or a few minutes earlier when my extra watch (kept in my totebag) says 8:05, or when the computer says it's 8:05.

I explained the non-synchronicity of all these things to the Uber Computer Dude at work, and he became completely fascinated with going about trying to adjust everything and checking out websites that supposedly provide you with the Absolute Correct Time and so on. But then of course the bus could be early, or way late, and I nevertheless spend a bit of my day just sitting on the little bench, amusedly contemplating TIME.

So now I have the challenge of trying to fit our life around Steve’s new work schedule. He will be awake and heading out to work at a time I consider to be the middle of the night, pretty much. I am here now, wide awake past midnight, as he tries to get in a few hours of rest, after we've been spending the night out with friends. I will sleep for 9-10 hours and wake up not too long before he gets off work. Will we get enough time together during the afternoon lunches and late evenings, when he is just starting to wind down and I am finally waking up? Or perhaps I will find a job that necessitates waking up early as well?