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Category: time

The Wee Hours

The Wee Hours

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It’s too early to speculate on the gifts of the pandemic, but I already have a candidate in mind. It’s sleep! Glorious shut-eye. Hours of deep slumber. With no need to commute, there has been no reason to wake up at 5:30. And for the last seven months, there has been even less incentive to burn the pre-dawn oil.

Or has there been? I love these early hours, and I’ve missed them lately. 

So today when I woke at 4 a.m., I tried for a while to drift back, as I usually do, but when that didn’t happen, I took it as a sign and rose for the day. 

It’s not even 6:30 and I’ve had great gobs of time to read, write and otherwise fritter away the day.

In the wee hours, the world is my oyster. 

Already Advent

Already Advent

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We come now to one of my favorite times in the liturgical year. It’s a short season, one ever more likely to be buried in tinsel and outdoor lighting. It’s the season of Advent, of preparation, of prayers and devotionals.

It is almost lost in this world, buried by frantic list-making and shopping.By nonstop carol radio and the Hallmark Christmas movie channel. Every year I hope the prayer and devotional part wins out. Every year it does not. But Advent is early this year, so maybe it has a chance.

Advent reminds me of medieval stone abbeys, of kneeling on hard surfaces, of chanting the divine office in the wee hours. No doubt informed by once reading The Cloister Walk, a fine book by Kathleen Norris, during early December, but also, I think, by the hymns and carols of my youth. 

Now these are mostly memory, but still captured in a few plaintive melodies — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, for one. I played it on the piano last night, trying to capture the hope and longing of this fleeting season. 

Of Time and Art

Of Time and Art

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I don’t always explore the Google doodles, but I did today, lured on by the picture of a woman playing a grand piano in a room filled with art and light. 

The woman, I learned, is Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, born on this day in 1805. She’s the sister of Felix, a composer I’ve come to appreciate ever more as the years go on, and was herself a gifted pianist and composer. She composed over 450 pieces of music, including many lieder (songs) and piano works.  As a 14-year-old she could  play 24 Bach Preludes from memory. 

Fanny died of a stroke at the age of 41. Her brother died of the same cause six months later, after composing a quartet in her memory. 

What the musical world gained from these two talented siblings cannot be measured. But what more it would have gained had they lived 200 years later, when they could have been on high blood pressure medication. Of course, had they been born 200 years later, they probably would have been writing rap music. Such is the nature of time and art. 

(Photo: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s music room in her home in Berlin, courtesy Wikipedia)

Charting Time

Charting Time

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It’s only a baby habit, just getting started, but I’ve decided to keep a time chart, noting on my (paper) calendar what I’m doing and when. 

Time flows differently these days, it eddies and it stalls and sometimes it swirls by so quickly that I barely see the ripples it leaves behind. 

So rather than wondering each day, where does the time go, I will try to chart it as it flies. 

A noble experiment, yes? 

We’ll see. 

Inside Again

Inside Again

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The house this morning has the feel of Noah’s ark two days into the 40. Only it’s not animals seeking refuge this morning; it’s plants.

As temperatures plunged into the 20s, we brought in the ferns and the spider plant and the cactus. They are hunkered down here where temps are in the upper 60s, heading for a high of 70 once the furnace moves to its daytime setting. Because some of the plants are so large they must be moved in on little dollies, they will stay inside now till spring.

The moving of the plants is one of those autumnal rites of passage I try to put off as long as possible. Turning on the heat in the house is another one. On both accounts we’ve made it to November, which I can hardly complain about.

But I will add a wistful note, a plea to the weather gods. It’s nothing personal, nothing against the plants themselves. But I hope it won’t be long before they can be outside again.

March of Time

March of Time

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One of the things I like about travel is that you move through time as well as space. You recover lost springs and leap ahead to crisp autumns. 

On Monday I strolled through the Columbia City neighborhood of south Seattle. It was sunny and cool, and I snapped a photo of a gnarled and mossy tree with crimson leaves. 

My head was still spinning from the flight across the country — an unusual tail wind meant we made the trip west in less than five hours — but it was alert enough to register this place, this northern place, as already ahead of us in the march of time. 

In the Can

In the Can

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Not to get too meta here, but writing this blog is largely a seat-of-the-pants enterprise. Most of my life has been tightly scripted until recently, so I’ve wanted to keep this writing loose and open. 

I’ve also resisted the temptation to draft a bunch of posts on the weekend to carry me through the first few busy days of the week. The details of the day are my inspiration, and they usually (kinda sorta) pull me through.

But recently, I’ve found myself writing several posts a day. This may be, probably is, a momentary thing. Inspiration tends to go in cycles, I’ve noticed. And it is undoubtedly made possible by the gift of time. 

Whatever the reason, though, it’s meant that, for the first time in forever, I have a few posts “in the can,” as we liked to call them back in my magazine editor days. 

They will come in handy on the days when the muse of daily inspiration is otherwise occupied. 

Raindrops on Roses

Raindrops on Roses

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Not on roses, actually, but raindrops on the leaves of the elephant ear plant. Raindrops I first spotted a few weeks ago when I was out walking Copper on a moist morning. 

I marveled at the way the liquid pooled on the surface of the giant leaves, thought to myself, you must snap a photo of this.

But I came inside and immediately forgot the impulse. By the time I remembered, it was too late. The sun had warmed the leaves and the moisture had evaporated. 

The artistic imperative strikes when it strikes. It does not linger. Luckily, it rained again.

Up Early

Up Early

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I’m up early enough today that the morning is still getting to know itself. Crickets have yet to turn in; their chirps form the rhythm section for which bird song supplies the melody. 

Copper has not only gone outside but has scampered down the deck stairs, an accomplishment no longer guaranteed and thus appreciated more. And in other pet news, when I uncovered the birds, Toby, the newbie, had found the highest perch and looked quite pleased with himself.

I hear bluejays and crows calling as I rise from the couch to make my tea. The back door is open. The back yard is mowed. Reading and weeding await me.

The details of a day I’m privileged to watch unfold. 

(A photo I took Saturday, a few miles from home.)

Harvest Time

Harvest Time

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A day’s drive out, a day’s drive back and three days in my hometown leave me in a state of addled contentment now that I’m back home. Throw in some nostalgia and amazement — from visiting with folks I haven’t seen in 10 or 20 years (numbers we toss around as we used to the single digits) — and you have a lovely way to end the summer.

Or is it ending? It will be 90 again today,  the cicadas are crescendoing and the humidity is creeping up as I write this post on the deck. 

Given the opportunity, I’d probably keep traveling and keep sweltering another month or two, but September is almost here — September with its call to purpose and purchase. It’s time to harvest what I’ve sown. 

(Joe Pye weed in a Jessamine County, Kentucky, field)