Time Out of Mind

1 – I don’t experience time moving the way I think it does for others. I know I say it a lot, but it certainly bears repeating. You see, I don’t know if I follow trends and schedules, so much as feelings and atmosphere and frenzy. It’s not as chaotic and disjointed and disorienting as it sounds, but it can also be all of those things. Strongly. I get lost sometimes – in time and matter.

There aren’t really seasons or sense, routines or consistency. It all just is. It moves in strange currencies and flows, like different rivers at different paces with different temperatures and different outcomes. Inlets and outlets and that mix of saltwater and freshwater, love and tears and sweat. Sometimes you might ask me how long I was with an ex-partner; a love, and I might say, “9 months” or I might say, “You know, I don’t know. Maybe it was 1,000 years.” I don’t always know. My brain knows the logic and the restraints and how to talk to you in a way that makes sense, but my heart is different. Scarlet’s first year of life was eons. Sometimes, often, I think I’ve lived 100 years and I’ve seen so much, and then I’m delighted I’m still in my 30s. How can I be in my 30s when I’ve lived 2,000 years? 2,000 lifetimes. I know I haven’t but I can feel those years.

You might say, “Oh, the weather this summer has been wonderful.” Or, “Oh, this fall has been gloomy.” Can I tell you if it’s been unseasonably warm or rainy? Maybe. I can tell you exactly what years it’s rained 27 days in a row during, and I’ll hold onto that little tidbit quite deliciously and bitterly. Otherwise, it’s the only way I can think of to learn how to live more in the present.

Time stills and it races, and I’m sometimes letting it spin and swirl around me – a rainbow of color and dazzle and grey and doom. Other times I spin around it, manipulating objects and subjects here and there, picking the pieces up and putting them somewhere else. Like a tornado. A time tornado. I’m not saying I’m a superhero, because that would be silly, wouldn’t it? I’m also not saying I’m not a superhero, because that would be even more silly, wouldn’t it?

2 – I don’t like being furious, but it’s the only way at times. My fury is powerful, but I like to believe peace is even more so. Everything about me sometimes, is on fire. Everything about me sometimes, is on ice. I’m not good at the balance. I’m not sure I’ve ever lost a fight, or gone for something full force and not gotten it. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a gut feeling be wrong. It seems like we have to balance so much in this world – from devastated to numb and back again – because how else can you tolerate it all? I rarely cry, but the other day I saw a photo of a sloth chained to the ground for the selfie/illegal pet owning trade – but it still looked like a sloth.

That photo made me cry for 37 minutes. And that photo made me write this post. I swear I had too much/not enough to say, and then I was felled by a photo. And let’s not talk about the koalas in the wildfires. Sometimes I think I sound threatening when I say that most people have no idea what I’m capable of, but that’s not it at all. I’m focused and determined, and I channel my power for good most of the time. These day I do things with clarity and not malice. It’s hard to focus, though, through sloth and koala photos, and time swirling all around us, and burning fires – in my heart and in this world. The good kind in one, and the bad kind in another. Fire.

Where do we find our creamy middles between emotionally inundated, and numb? That creamy middle is action, and you can cry through it all. Maybe that’s preferred. I play a lot of long games – with love and career and damn character building, which NEVER ends, by the way – and that’s the way I’m built. It’s because time doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t think I make sense to it either. I find my creamy middles between dizzying extremes, and that’s when the passion and fire and FOCUS kick in. There’s no time for long games. If time stands still, I’ll make a lot of lists, because that’s what I do. And I’ll check them off, up and down, left to right, or right to left (in Hebrew) and down to up. I’ll never stop making lists; checking them off. Twice.

Time stands still and I change, and change again. I try to fit your mold, I try to fit my mold, and then I shift and shape and bend until it’s comfortable. And then until it isn’t again. Life cycles and water cycles move on and through. Time’s soldiers drop, one by one. Lines and blurs, snapshots and stop-motion, and dewdrops on roses. Rewind, fast forward, pause in the middle.

I have more time, it seems, and so do you, it seems. Time rises and sets. It races and stills. Sometimes, you bend it and stretch it and mold it and shape it. Hold it to your heart, breathe it into your lungs, and paint a damn rainbow with that swirl. The world needs it, after all, and maybe so do you. To me, you are perfect. Imperfectly so. Just the way you move and breathe.

I’m linking up with Finish The Sentence Friday (FTSF) for another fun and challenging prompt. This week’s topic is “Time Stands Still..” And there’s time to write yours. Link up your post HERE.