Time

Well spent, or wasted

February is short, passed by me quickly, and involved a heavy dose of life contemplation. My birth month's thoughts were a bit much to get out onto a page without some distance removed from them. I owe you another piece and I'll deliver it to you in a few weeks, when the days are longer and the air is warmer and some seedlings have been tucked under the grow lights. I'm not ready and there it goes again, Time, that fickle concept that seems to stretch and shrink in all the ways we prefer it would not...

I acknowledged my 37th loop around the sun in early February. The number may not strike most as an age that would bring about a serious life review. There was no zero at the end, no new decade to tiptoe into. But as I anticipated leaving behind my mid-thirties an old and nagging whisper turned into an irrefutable roar, the unignorable voice sneaking into my consciousness no matter where I attempted to shield my mind:

Buried in work: You're staring at a screen too much.
A few moments in the woods: You should be here more!
And when I sat on the couch in an attempt to relax: You could be spending more time with your friends and your family...

At the most inopportune times the final words of a Mary Oliver poem would find my weary brain: "You must change your life."

Perhaps you too have been a captive audience to such thoughts, wrestling with practicality versus the truth in the knowing. 

What is it about time as we get older - seemingly morphing, quickening, slipping regardless of whether or not we are intentional with our most inestimable, most irreplaceable, commodity? 

We are always spending - money or time. They say you can't have both - is it true?

As the inner voice got louder, and despite my bank account quivering, I began positioning to leave my 9-5 (which is actually 8-4:30), leading to an emotional and mental tug of war. A friend reassured me, reminded me: "you'll be paid in fresh air and free time."

I celebrated my birthday the only way that makes sense when you are a mid winter baby in Northern Vermont... embracing the snow and the cold with dear friends. We embarked on a three day, 30 mile ski adventure, traveling through woods I mostly didn't know, but had grown up adjacent to, leaving straight from my parents' front door. Let me be clear - this was not winter camping. After ten miles a day we treated our tired bodies to warm accommodations - at a friend's chalet, at Jay Peak, and at an inn with a hot tub to soothe our sore muscles.

Time performed its elasticity magic trick, and despite hardly seeing our chalet owning friends over the past eight years, we picked up as if no time had passed at all - eating moose meat, drinking good scotch, and staying up too late by the wood stove. 

At Jay Peak I descended trails I'd never known existed, despite getting my first ski turns in at that mountain nearly three decades ago. I discovered a piece of the mountain I hadn't yet known, its familiar profile looking on as if she were an old friend extending an exclusive invitation. While the resort has gone from basic to glam, the mountain has stayed steady, still full of adventure - each visit allowing me to slip back into my childhood.

My dad asked me to write about the journey, the first leg of which he's done on foot in the thick of a summertime sometime ago. I haven't yet told him that towards the end of this particular stretch I wondered if we'd spend a cold night in the woods, as we tried to side step up powder to get over a mountain ridge thick as shit with unforgiving evergreens - the air getting colder, the sky getting darker, my body and mind both being put to the test. 

Dad has told me that time is not the linear construct of our minds that we've made it out to be. And while I'm still puzzling over the concept of past, present, and future being intertwined, I do know the hours of 8-4:30 at a desk are no longer serving my body or mind, and so I continue to work towards my out.

So that we can drive past Jay to the Northeast Kingdom
on a midweek morning
as if it were the good ole days, the nineties 
No agenda, no timeline, no phones.
Just a paper map and a tank full of gas
A stop at a diner, a seat in a booth
the little paper placemat advertising all the local businesses
pancakes, hash browns, and never ending coffee.

Dad will sit across from me
and tell me again about time
I’ll scratch my head and ask
But how do the chickadees know when to change their tune Dad?
And he'll smile
still getting questions about how the world works 
from his almost middle-aged daughter
and he'll hold his cup out for another cup of coffee…

in just a few months
we'll have the time.