Photo a Day: Time

"Time keeps on tickin', tickin', tickin' into the future..." Those of you of a certain age will remember those lyrics from Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle." When I first heard that song back in 1976, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I didn't really "get" it. I mean, I knew that time was passing, but it wasn't passing fast enough for me. I wanted time to go by so I could get to do cool stuff like staying up until 8 o'clock, or making my own dinner, or drinking soda whenever I wanted. I couldn't WAIT for time to tick into the future.

But 40 or so years later, that time is ticking into the future a little more quickly than I'd like. Instead of wanting to push it forward, I'd like to be able to hold it back. I'd like to stay close enough to the past to both remember and enjoy it. I'd like to hang on to the present for a while longer, to really embrace it and appreciate it. I'm perfectly content to wait for that future for quite some time.

But time keeps on tickin', tickin', tickin' into the future.

This beautiful grandfather clock stands in my living room. Appropriately enough, it used to belong to my father-in-law, my children's grandfather. It bears a small plaque with his name and the name and logo of the fraternity that he and my husband are members of, Sigma Phi Epsilon. It both looks and sounds beautiful.

I love that I can hear it from my bedroom. Without opening my eyes, I can count its chimes and know whether I need to get up or whether I can roll over and go back to sleep for a little (or a long) while. Even when I'm struggling to sleep and its chimes remind me of exactly how long I've been wide awake, there's something relaxing and comforting about its sound. It's almost like a soothing voice telling me that it's still night, there's still time to sleep. Or that it's finally day and the long sleepless night is over and I can stop tossing and turning and start my day.

It also reminds me that the generation that came before me is coming to the end of their time and handing me the gauntlet. My generation is now the one in charge, making decisions that will direct the course of the world around us. My generation is shaping the lives of the generation that will come after us, who will in their own time direct the course of the world, whether that be to continue our legacy or to try to correct it. I can picture this clock standing in my in-laws' home, and I can imagine it standing in one of my children's homes. It reminds me of the passage of decades, years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

It reminds me that time keeps on tickin', tickin', tickin' into the future...

Time.

Photo A Day, Day 21: I Wish I Had This

The irony of today’s topic does not escape me: take a photograph of something that I wish I had. Well now, if I had it, I wouldn’t have it to take a photo of, would I? I suppose I could “cheat” by posting a photo that I didn’t take, perhaps something from my Pinterest board entitled “Stuff I’ll Buy When I Finally Write That Best-Seller.” A fur coat, a pair of Louboutins, a Valentino gown, a jet ski, some really nice jewelry, a snazzy little convertible. But even that stuff isn’t really stuff I wish I had, at least not in the sense that I think about wanting it on a regular basis.

There really aren’t many tangible, visible, physical things that I want on a regular basis. I mean, I have passing wants. I want a glass of wine. I want a second cup of coffee. I want a pair of comfortable jeans. I want two potty-trained children. But those are all things that are well within my ability to obtain, if I want them badly enough and I’m willing to bide my time (okay, I’m starting to have my doubts about that last one, but I’m keeping faith that it will happen eventually). But I can’t think of any bit of “stuff” that I really, genuinely want that I can’t have.

I suppose there are intangible things that I want in passing, as well. I want to be able to play the piano well. I want my children to get along with each other. I want to publish a best-seller. And although I certainly have the ability to work toward making those things happen, none of them are completely in my control. I can improve my piano playing, but with a degenerative disease in my hands and limited practice time, I’m never going to be much more than a passable pianist. I can teach my children good manners and model interpersonal skills for them, but I can’t force them to be nice to each other every second of the day. I can write umpteen drafts of a book and send it to dozens of publishers, but if no-one want to publish it (or if they do, but no-one wants to buy it), I am simply not capable of making it a best-seller on my own. But it isn't really the end of the world to me if none of those things happen.

So what is it that I really, genuinely, continuously, deep-down, wish I had? I think, as so many moms of small children would answer, I wish I had more time. 

I wish I had more time to just sit back and play with my children. I wish I had more time to sit them in my lap and read to them. I wish I had more time to read classic literature and cheesy novels and young adult dystopian fiction. I wish I had more time to visit my in-laws and my cousins and my old college chums. I wish I had more time to work on writing that book and practicing piano and being in musicals and learning to cook gourmet meals. I wish I had more time to watch the sunrise and the sunset. I wish I had more time to stay up late catching fireflies and counting shooting stars. I wish I had more time to chat with strangers in line at the grocery store. I wish I had more time to get to know the other parents at my son’s preschool. I wish I had more time to snuggle with my husband in front of a fire with a glass of good wine in my hand and a symphony playing in the background. I wish I had more time to go see all my talented friends and family in their many performances. I wish I had more time to travel around the country and the world. I wish I had more time to take my kids to art museums and science museums and historical museums.

More time: I wish I had it.

June 23 Photo: Movement

Today’s photo is a bit of a cheat, because I didn’t take it. (And I can’t lie about that fact, because I am clearly in the picture.) But since movement is really difficult to depict and since I love the way this photo captures it, I’m going to give my husband credit for taking it and post it anyway.

Most of the photographs that I take trying to capture movement just end up as blurs. (And with my kids, most of the photographs that I take are trying to capture movement!) I can’t blame it on my camera, because my husband used my camera to take this photo. Maybe he knows some special setting that I don’t (likely) or maybe he just has a better eye than I (extremely likely). But whatever technique he used, this photo captures movement exactly the way I wanted to capture it.

If you look closely at the lower left-hand side of the photograph, right under the surface of the water you can just make out the flesh-colored blur that is my son immediately post-belly-flop. He loves to stand on the side of the pool and hurl himself in, spread-eagled, in order to make the maximum splash possible. It takes an amazingly quick shutter finger to catch him mid-air, since he gives zero warning that he’s about to jump, so most of the photos of him jumping into the pool look a lot like this one.

And that’s a pretty good illustration of life with a 2-1/2-year-old boy: You rarely see the event, just the aftermath. You find the Legos strewn all over the living room after the 3-foot-tall tower crashes down. You mop up the puddle of soapy water on the bathroom floor after the tub toys have had an epic (and splashy) battle. You rescue the child with his head trapped between the bars of the fence after he squeezes the rest of his body through (photo below for those of you who missed it).

Yup, life with a 2-1/2 year old boy is pretty much constant movement – yours, his, toys, and time. It’s nice to have a photograph every now and then to freeze the action so you don’t miss it completely. Because you can’t stop the movement of the child or of the clock.

June 14 Photo: Time

As the mother of two small children, my perception of time has changed drastically. Sometimes, time moves incredibly slowly, like when my 2-1/2 has a tantrum in a store or refuses to take a nap or when my 10-month-old screams from teething pain. Sometimes, it flies by, like when I watch my son ride his tricycle or help vacuum the pool or my daughter feed herself or say, “Mama,” and I wonder when they got so grown up.

As the mother of two, I have also learned to reprioritize my time. It used to be important to me to find time to do things like making my bed or putting on lipstick or shaving my legs or sitting down to eat lunch. Now, it’s more important to me to color with my son or help my daughter feed herself or play in the sandbox with both of them.

Today is a perfect example of how I prioritize my time. As I started writing this blog entry, I took a picture of the clock on the wall:

It’s about 11:30am. And as of fifteen minutes ago, I hadn’t showered or dressed or even brushed my teeth. Because with limited time, I decided I would rather sit and have breakfast with my son and help my daughter practice walking than any of those things. I didn’t wash my hair or put on makeup, but I did wrestle with an imaginary alligator, help build a tower of Legos, and learn the word “engineer”.

Time’s only value is what you choose to do with it. And I’d say I made a pretty good choice today. So if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear a dragon roaring in the next room. I don't have time to think about lunch when there’s a dragon that needs slaying!