Imagine, for a
moment, that we are sitting on a beach or up a mountain on a beautiful summer’s
evening. We are watching the stars,
imperceptibly moving across the sky as the night becomes day. How slowly the time moves, how calm we feel!
Now, it’s 8.30
am on a weekday morning. We have to be
at school in half an hour and that same time which stretched endlessly has
suddenly shrunk to no time at all. The
traffic is busy, the children are never ready when you want them to be and
you’re bound to have forgotten something.
How does this happen?
The school
summer holidays are nearly over here in England. It’s the last day of August. Almost seven weeks have passed by and where
has that time gone? What have we done
with all of those hours? Well, in our
case we’ve visited friends, had a some time away, done some jobs around the
house, walked the dog, had days and evenings out and most of all, had a
rest. I have been grateful for the
slowness of the mornings and for not having to battle with the rush hour traffic. I have been grateful for the difference in
the amount of washing and ironing that I have had to do. I have been grateful to be able to stop clock
watching, ready to abandon whatever I am doing to do the school run instead. Most of all, I have been grateful for not
feeling as if I am constantly late.
I know that
time is a human concept, invented to make to easier for us to live with one
another in societies which have grown busier over the centuries. What I have never understood, though, is how despite
the regularity of the hours, time seems to be flexible, like a rubber band or
piece of Plasticine, stretching out and then snapping back to make an apparent
mockery of those minutes etched on the clock face. Why does time fly when you’re having fun and
last interminably when you’re not? Why do
we never have enough hours in the day when we’ve always got the same number, no
matter what day it is?
My plan for today
is to try to organise the next few days and week so that we’re not constantly running
late, forgetting things and squeezing too much into too short a time. I’ve said before that September always feels
like the start of a new year, and my resolution for this one is to make it
until the official New Year in January without feeling that time was invented
to make me feel like a hamster on a wheel which never stops. Who knows if I’ll manage it (and you know that I’ll
keep you posted!) but if there are a few moments along the way to watch the
stars, then I think I might just make it.