There are no minutes or hours
May 14th, 2023
My life is defined by periods of time. Painfully artificial periods of time that are set by tradition and convenience and applied to everyone and everything in all aspects of what we do from the day we were born to the day we go back to eternal sleep. And I oblige to and by them — I keep a watch on me at all times and the cellphone as a backup during my waking hours. I am polite and considerate like that and I dutifully keep the time divided by minutes and hours and days and seasons and years.
Except when I don't.
Which is rare and feels rebellious and illegal and wrong and wasteful, and the acuteness of this difference from normality brings anxiety and chaotic fear of something. But the nervousness caused by this sudden freedom lasts only minutes before I am able to let it go and enjoy myself and my time without a timeline. And without any set limits or periods or strict guidance as to when and how long and in which way I can divide or combine the current time that is given to me. I already know I cannot multiply the time, and at those precious moments I know how to stop subtracting from it. And time stops, or slows down to an indistinct level.
Once I got away from the marina, with its Sunday morning bustle, and crossed some open water — I got to a secluded bay where I just let everything go. I stopped paddling, I stopped thinking, I stopped worrying. I just sat in my kayak letting the gentle current move it around. I sat and listened — to the slight wind in the rushes, to birds chirping and toads croaking. Time passed or maybe it didn't — since I wasn't paying attention to it and lost my awareness of its insisting importance.
