time Archives %- – Rock The Wrinkle

There’s an area not too many miles from where I live with a path that winds around some ballfields and a small manmade lake. The path is paved and goes through some trees so it is a nice respite from the nearby busy street and noise of modern life. The path is named for someone and, along the way, there are benches and signs with verses from the Bible.

I do not know the person for whom it was named, but apparently she was only 35 when she departed this world. Now I walk the path with my dog and sometimes wonder about her.

Did she get to do the things that mattered most to her before she departed this world so young? Did she have advance notice that her time was to be short, and if so, did she continue with her everyday routine, or did she decide to throw caution to the wind and take more risks? Did she feel her life was fully lived, or did she shake her fist at the heavens and implore why she had so little time?

What would I do if given such news…would I take a completely different path…I wonder.

When I walk a labyrinth, I’m struck by how you walk the outer edges, then just as it seems you will enter the middle you are again taken to the outside…as though to revisit and relearn something again and again. Maybe it’s that whole “wherever you go, there are you” thing. Or maybe it’s just a lesson from the universe of “not so fast…you have more ground to cover before you get the answers.”

It’s strangely calming.

Walk a mountain trail and you often find yourself concentrating hard on the way up (or down) as you begin, carefully taking steps over rocky terrain, wanting to cover ground before you begin to tire, thinking about how much time you have before you have to be back, will you have enough water, will the weather hold, etc. You notice the scenery around you, but it’s almost a backdrop to all the noise in your head that takes a while to quiet. You’re on a mission; you have a trail to complete.

But when you turn back, you feel yourself exhale, and with it, often goes much of the need to control the experience. You’re now walking more loosely, you’re noticing how the sunlight bounces off the leaves, how majestic the boulders are, how beautifully blue the sky is. It’s as though it’s a completely different trail, and yet it’s the same one that brought you there.

Because now you’re a bit older, a little wiser and more sure of yourself. Your eyes are more open. You’re reminded how you are part of the trail, and not the other way around.

The trail didn’t change. You did.

The labyrinth has always been there. You just never really took the time to walk it.

The path that is your life was always waiting, you didn’t even realize you were already on it.

You can step off of it. You can turn around. You can linger at a particularly wonderful spot. You won’t get lost, because the path will there. But like all walks in the woods, keep an eye on the time.

Because it goes so fast.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

“The problem is that you think you have time.” Jack Kornfield

Time is so precious. We understand this so much more as we age. I think when most of us were much younger, we saw the future as a very long road stretching out before us to infinity, with no end or at least one that wasn’t anywhere in sight. We “had” time to play, to make and lose friends, to eat what we wanted, maybe drink too much, not exercise enough, and whatever struck our fancy because, after all, we “had” time.

Then a few years went by.

We saw a few strange marks on our faces (“are those wrinkles? Can’t be.”) We couldn’t stay up quite as late, but we sure tried. We noticed how some friends seemed to drift away, yet we didn’t work too hard to get back in touch. After all, we were now working hard on getting things right: our marriages, our careers, our portfolios. The other things, like peace of mind or emotional health? Oh, there’d be plenty of time to worry about that later.

And since we were never really going to grow old, it didn’t matter anyway.

Then a lot more years went by, and very quickly. Much too quickly.

Yet now we are more content with who and what we are because we recognize—this is who we are. Spending a few hours with a good friend is priceless. Reading a really engrossing novel is fulfilling. Watching a grandchild or great niece or nephew giggle is a joy, because we know how quickly they will grow up. Watching a spectacular sunset fills us with awe and isn’t something we take for granted. We are still on our path, but we recognize we’re closer to the end…at least on this planet.

We see how fast time goes by now.

Or did it always?

It’s bittersweet. And depending upon your beliefs, it could just be the beginning, with another path awaiting our spirits that won’t be revealed until we leave our achy joints and bad feet behind. But regardless of where your heart lies, it’s good to just be where you are, in every moment. And if it’s not a good place, then give yourself permission to make it so.