Writer's Island-Time Travel

Too fast.  That's what I think about time.  It travels much too fast. Remember how the days once crept by, every minute larger than life and filled with opportunities~for play, for laughter, for being with friends, for having fun.   Did you ever once give a thought to time running out, to not having enough of it?

When was the moment you first noticed the swift passage of time?  For me, it as my 16th birthday -and I need a calculator to determine exactly how long ago that was.  There's a Polaroid picture of me in an old photo album somewhere, leaning in to blow out the candles on my cake,  dressed in the plaid skirt of my school uniform, my long hair in two brown braids draped over my shoulders.  Truthfully, I look more like 6 than 16 in that picture- yet I recall looking in the mirror that day and thinking, "Someday you'll be old."   Old like my mother - who was all of 45 at the time.  Old like my grandmother, who was 63. 

Looking back on all the years since then, who could have believed they would travel by so swiftly, a blur of college, and marriage, and motherhood.  Like fast motion photography, it sped past me-my life-leaving me standing here in the chill wind of ghostly memories.  I brace myself each day, digging my heels into the earth to keep myself grounded firmly in this moment, whatever it might be.

Oh, I know I'm one of the lucky ones.  I'm healthy, and strong, I've never faced mortal illness or danger, my family is rife with long lived women, and, thanks to advances in modern science, I could conceivably count more years than any of them. 

Yet those years fly by so swiftly, and there is still so much left to do.

There's a poem by A.E. Houseman, set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams...Lovliest of Trees, it's called.  It's a beautiful, lyric song, which many of the high school girls choose to sing as a festival piece.  It goes like this...

 Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride, Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

If you do the math, the narrator of this poem is 20 years old, lamenting the thought of "only fifty more" springs.  It makes me smile to hear teenage girls sing this song, trying to grasp this idea of a finite amount of time in which to savor the cherry blossoms. 

Well, I've had fifty springs, and more besides.  And they seem to roll around more quickly every year, those cherry blossom months.  Soon, another long Michigan winter will be past, the robins will return, and the sun will warm my skin.  I'm grateful for that, although it reminds me again of this swift network of time I'm traveling through.

So excuse me while I go wander the woodlands...there are cherry trees to savor.

written for the writer's island 

Sighing Times Seven-Cafe Writing

Cafe Writing, Option Two: Give me seven things that make you sigh...  1) Seeing my puppies curled up together sleeping - the perfect canine companions;

2) Hearing my son talk about things he's passionate and knowledgeable about;

3) Tasting a fresh cup of rich, dark roasted coffee first thing in the morning;

4) Feeling the touch of my husband's fingers wrapped around mine;

5) Talking, laughing, and sharing stories with my girlfriends;

6) Playing music that I love on the piano, like Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat and Debussy's Arabesque Number 1;

7) Losing myself in the pages of a wonderful book.

Seven lovely things, and reading over them I see how reflective they are of all the things most important to me...my family, my animals, music, books - and yes, coffee too.  Sensible, I suppose, that the things which make you sigh with delight would be those things with which you wish to fill your life.  And how fortunate I am to be able to sigh in pleasure and not in pain, to revel in simple moments, to feel such satisfaction arise from tiny miracles like sleeping puupies, a young man's conversation, a hand to hold in the dark, a confidence shared among friends.   For life in general is filled with moments like these - and mine in particular are very fine indeed.

Sigh.

Sunday Scribblings-Sleep

"hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy little baby..."

Sleep is my nemesis.  Just ask my mother - the stories of my sleeping -or non sleeping- habits as an infant are notorious in our family.

"There I'd be," my mother will say, "lying in bed with you there beside me, and I'd finally doze off because I was just so tired, but then I'd wake up and you'd be staring at me with those big dark eyes, wide awake and looking all excited."

Yep, that's me. 

There's always so many more interesting things to do besides sleep.  Books to read, music to listen to and to play, stories to write, friends to visit, movies to see, walks and bike rides to take, food to cook...the possibilities in life are endless.  Why waste time sleeping, when all the world lies before you?

Most children defy bedtime, and my parents wisely never forced me to bed early.  They trusted me to get the sleep I needed, and apparently I did, for I grew to be a normal, healthy young woman.  Now my mother claims I didn't like sleeping because I was "bright" and "didn't want to miss a minute of anything going on."

Actually, she's probably right - at least the part about not wanting to miss things.  Because the older I get, the less I like to sleep.  After all, there's only so much time in this one wonderful life, and now that I'm into the second half of my century, who knows how much of it I have left. 

So why waste it sleeping?

click here for more thoughts about sleeping

The Honeymoon's Over

Over at Bookstack, I occasionally participate in a meme called Booking Through Thursday where each week a bookish type question is posted.  This week we were asked whether we had ever "fallen out of love" with a favorite author.   While writing my response, I started thinking about "falling out of love" with other things - foods, music, activities, hobbies - a train of thought that was prompted by my experiece last night. The Valentine's Day concert at the high school...each year our girl's choir hosts a Valentine's Day cabaret style concert, complete with romantic little tables for two strewn with rosebuds, pink punch, and lots of cookies and chocolate desserts.  While people sit and munch, the girls perform some songs.  Now, it's all very cute and girly, and they dress up in their best sparkly dresses.  But in the 15 years I've been accompanying for the choirs, I have to admit it's my least favorite of anything I do.  I think I almost prefer playing in the orchestra pit for musical (and unless you've done that, you can't know how horrible it is.)

Last night was certainly no exception.

The singing was abysmal (sorry to sound like Simon, but I did feel as if I were listening to the auditions of American Idol all over again).  The punch was sickeningly sweet (what it really needed was a healthy shot of champagne).  The girls were dressed most inappropriately (a young woman standing 5 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds should never wear a v-neck, sleevless, red sequined dress). 

I am so over this, I kept thinking last night, as I endured an hour's worth of this, and then had to repeat the entire performace for a "second sitting" at eight o'clock.

I think I've finally fallen out of love with high school music.

Sometimes it can be good to fall out of love with something.  I've been agonizing for quite some time about whether to keep this high school job.  But the more experiences like last night just serve to convince me it's time to move on. 

It seems to be a pattern with me - I have to "do something to death" before I'm able to call it quits, become so heartily sick of it that I can no longer bear it for an instant.   Only then can I give it up, toss it aside gratefully as one would an albatross around the neck, breathing a huge sigh of relief. 

And then the relinquishing is not so painful,  is it? 

How about you?  Have you fallen out of love with something in your life?  How do you handle it?

Resurfacing

I'm back. Did you miss me? 

Because I missed you.

Amazing, isn't it, how attached one becomes to these "cyber connections," these friendships created almost solely through language and image on a screen.

I've spent the past week on holiday with two of my dearest friends, women who I've come to know over the past 10 years based on our joint ventures in music and teaching.  During that time we've laughed and cried many times together...we've shared losses in our personal lives and celebrated moments of joy.  We've reveled in concerts done well, and sympathised over performances that weren't up to par. 

Yet during the week, my mind often drifted to thoughts of you, my friends - wondering how Bella Rum was doing with her health and wellness program, if Deirdre was still missing her niece and nephew, worrying about Sherry who's going in for her annual check up, and about Melissa's dog Zorro, who has been ill. 

So today, I've been busily checking up on everyone, seeing how they all fared.  It's been good to see you, my friends.

And how exciting to find gifts left for me in my absence!!!  "You Make My Day" awards from Deirdre and Immelda, and an "E is for Excellent" award from Bella Mocha. 

Wow.

"Only connect," wrote E.M. Forster at the beginning of his novel Howard's End. "Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.  Live in fragments no longer...only connect."

We are "connected by prose," aren't we? all of us who share our lives and hearts with one another through words written and sent out across the world.  We no longer "live in fragments," now that we're able to connect our thoughts with an ever farther reaching group of human beings.

Amazing.  Exciting. Gratifying.

All the things friendship should be.

How happy I am to have connected with you.