Today I am Writing: On Conceptualization of Time

I've been trying to write, you know.

It has been going well/not-so-well.

Today I finally hit my groove at 3 p.m., approximately 6 hours later than I meant to.

But those 6 hours? MONUMENTALLY IMPORTANT.

I just realized.

It's the navigation of Time and timing that I find difficult, the trusting that there is this Place within which you are sitting that cannot be moved and cannot be negated. You have it: Time.

But the use of that Time, the timing of the Time, sometimes feels fuzzy to me. I wake up from a good night's sleep, roll over to remove the eye-mask that keeps me resting with some longevity, notice the it-is-summer-and-up-before-me sun with a good long intake of breath and stretch of my long arms, and then sheer and utter panic sets in. It's a day in which I will need to navigate Time and timing!

I'm a mess, I tell you. A mess.

But I am learning, and it's the children, actually, who are helping me to learn.

The Time which I have set aside this week has been to write about time, oddly enough. To consider the ways that I have seen children conceptualize it, roll around in it, use it or not use it. We assume (with our rather arrogant adult assumptions) that children are terrible managers of time, but watch a child. Nobody manages Time better than a child.

Children conceive of Time with four little mechanisms I like to call the Quick Transition, the Lengthy Participation, the Story Arc, and--drum roll please!--the Cycle of Memory. 

Here, a very brief lesson, for those of you wondering:

The Quick Transition, a.k.a. the flit-from-thing-to-thing
The Lengthy Participation, a.k.a. no matter who you are or what bribe you are employing, you cannot get that child away from that thing
The Story Arc, a.k.a. when the child is driving you crazy because he is quick-transitioning like a little madman and you think all order has been lost and society is going to the bats, and then you realize the child has been working on the same main thing for all this time, and it was only you who couldn't see it
The Cycle of Memory, a.k.a. when the child quickly transitions to some thing you and he created four months ago, as if no time has gone by a'tall, and is disgruntled to find you have absolutely no recollection of it

Now, back to me.

Today, I hit my groove at 3 p.m., my Lengthy Participation moment where I sat at my desk and bled brilliance.

And it wasn't until I took a little ruminate-on-the-toilet break that I realized how much those children had to offer me. I realized for the first time that the 6 infuriating hours leading up to the Lengthy Participation moment I had been aiming for all day had been my Quick Transition period, where I flitted from my desk to the kitchen to my desk to the post-office, completely unaware--in my adult assumptiveness--that I was actually engaging in a Story Arc.

My it-is-morning panic reflects this belief that I have to find my Story Arc all over again, that it got lost somewhere in the nether-lands beyond my eye-mask, and good luck is all that's left me.

Somebody really should just call me up once in a while, and remind me: If once I was a child, then I have a cycle of memory too. And I am not nearly as much of a mess as I think I might be.

If I think I have time, I will answer.

From Friday to Friday: "Let's Stop at the Nursery" Edition

From Friday to Friday: "These Kids Crack Me Up" Edition

[When she is a week away from completing her arpeggio challenge and the prize she has chosen is "watch a movie with Lauren," she writes a secret note, wraps it in a construction-paper envelope held together with stickers, and hides it in a secret location. 

 Upon challenge-completed-revelation, she refers to that time you watched Wonder Woman with her family and huddled for protection near her 5-year-old sister, stressed to the end of your life...]

 [When she hands you the cookie with the very serious proclamation that it is "for all the good things you do."]

[When the girl is new to your studio and serious serious, but you review her year and she breaks out in smiles too too sweet.] 

[When you had just been thinking about the Sweet Williams of your plant-with-dad-every-year childhood and how you would like to get some, and then she brings you a whole pot of them, and you get a little teary and she looks at you like you just might have a screw loose and she's gonna keep an eye out...]

From Friday to Friday, 56

Thought of the Week:
There are really no words to describe just how much I adore living in this little walk-to-the-cafe-hit-the-post-office-on-the-way town.

Today I am Writing: On Listening

I've been thinking about Samuel, that boy child sent to live with people not his people, for the sake of "the LORD." Samuel didn't ask to be born and he didn't ask to be consecrated but there he was, the answer to his mother's sincere prayer and heart, with a grumpy old man and his derelict sons.

And because I think about childhood pretty much all of the time, I find myself wondering: What kind of childhood did that boy child have?

But the other day I was there in the kitchen and I had been hearing from the Lord that really in this moment my directions are very simply to Believe Hope Listen, and I remembered the call, "Samuel! Samuel!" and so I went and looked it up.

I read Samuel's reply: "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening" and that jumped right up and bit me a bit, the criteria for hearing the speaking I-wouldn't-mind-right-now being "I am listening."

And then I read the Almighty One's response, which was, essentially: "I'm gonna make some people's ears, tingle."

I said, "God, did you really just use the word tingle?"
And then I realized who He was speaking to: A child.

Children love phrases like that.

Of course, that God went on to tell that child about all the destruction He was about to do, which just feels like "traumatic" to me, but...here's the point: He acknowledged that lonesome boy child. He got down on his level before he trusted him with the very movement of Almighty Working in the World. Where we read 'destruction' God saw 'justice,' fighting for those who were oppressed. And He entrusted it to an oppressed one.

"Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." Will I listen with the heart of a child, seen and known? Will I listen with and for the heart of the oppressed? Will I listen for what that Almighty One is going to do, in order to restore justice in every big and small way?

Those are big questions, that very simply boil down to: Will I listen for a God who uses words like "tingle" when dealing with a child?
Because, in truth: I can't get enough of a God like that.

Today I am Writing: On Being Rusty

The end of an academic year always brings the urgent-before-everyone-leaves meetings, the celebration lunches and the end-of-year concerts, projects wrapping up and people re-connecting. My path begins to feel splintered, like I can't keep track of where I'm supposed to be. And it's my writing that suffers.

Last week I tried to read, all the things that I believed would get me back in the swing. But this morning I sit down to write and discover: I am as rusty as an old beat up car, let out to rot.

So, today I am writing: on being rusty.

Here's what happens, when the rust spots appear: I panic, that I am failing at life. I scramble to find something worth saying. I try to put sentences together but they sound false and too uptight. 

I go have lunch in the yard.

I realize two things:

1) If I am not enjoying it, no one else will either. I remind myself to pursue the train of thought that I enjoy, and write about that first.

2) There is a necessary quiet that must occur, a space in which to connect deep and receive myself, if ever I'm going to have anything worth saying. I remind myself to sit in the yard and breathe.

I have gotten out of the habit, and it is habit that keeps the rust away. I resolve: I need to look for the things that wake me up, sit with them before my eyes and ponder. Reflect. Write.

So, look for it: Today I am Writing. A Revival.

From Friday to Friday: Morning Walk Edition

From Friday to Friday: Family Wedding Edition