On mornings when I have a meeting before school, Mitike moves the most slowly, tying her little pink New Balance shoes with especial care, deciding against the pink shirt she's wearing for a lighter pink one. The other mornings, she's dressed and ready with her backpack (pink) on her shoulders. "Momma, do we have time or not this morning?"
For an entire year after Ali died, I woke in the middle of the night, a time traveler. I thought she was next to me in the darkness and wondered, when I found only empty space beside me in bed, if she'd gotten up early to grade papers. Sometimes I woke and thought I was in New Mexico in the house beside the pomegranate tree. Sometimes I sat bolt upright, certain I heard the whir of the generator outside on the Iowa farm where I was a little girl. Time shifted. I was unmoored. When I opened my closet in the mornings to choose clothes for the day, I was surprised to find everything on shelves and hangers, still. The house hadn't tilted and rocked in the night, after all.
I stared at the woman in the mirror. She looked young, in spite of the shadows beneath her eyes. I felt 85. Brittle.
We don't have much time. Enjoy your time. Timing is everything. It was her time to go. "The time is out of joint."
Lao Tzu taught that time is a creation, that if we say "I don't have time," we mean "I don't want to."
I have time. I'm 37. My grandmother lived three times as long as I have so far.
Lately, when I've woken in the mornings, I've felt happy. I'd forgotten how the air can be lighter. I cradle my coffee in the cool mornings and love the pink hue of the early sky. I want to run through all the crunching leaves hand in hand with Mitike. But now time moves even more strangely. A weekend in the mountains begins and ends in a blink. Two days in a row when I'm alone in my quiet apartment at night feel like weeks. I think these beautiful moments are blossoming slowly around me until I remember it's only been a short time since grief was my constant companion and I said I'd be alone forever. When I look in the mirror, I see I'm young again. Sometimes, I glimpse that lanky girl who sat watching the sunset over a vast cornfield.
What did Thoreau say? "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." Georgia O'Keefe said no one sees flowers because they don't take the time, like being a friend takes time. Virgil said our sweetest hours fly the fastest. I love when my middle school students say sometimes, at the end of class, "It's time to go already?"
It's time. But how much time is right before. . .?
I'm dizzy. Sorrow and joy mimic each other, in that they both tangle time. But maybe I love this kind of bewilderment. Maybe I want to get lost this time.
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