On Time

It starts slowly. Almost imperceptible.

Like any good purge, it starts slow so that there is no panic. Nobody thinks twice, they just keep their eyes down and mind their own business, not wanting any trouble. They all know what is going on, its talked about in hush tones, they look for the signs, waiting for it to start. They will notice it tomorrow, it will be unavoidable tomorrow, but they don’t see it starting.

It starts with the plates.

The cute decretive plates which are brought out for autumn, but more so for Thanksgiving, will go into the dishwasher and never see the comfortable shelves again this year. When the cycle is done they will instead be placed into a carrier, and from there be taken into the garage where they will not see the light of day until the leaves start turning next year. Instead, by the time that desert is over, the Christmas plates will have taken their place.

From there the purge rolls on. Stalin’s NKVD were given lists of political enemies to arrest each night. Aunt Beth has no list; Aunt Beth needs no list. She knows where each and every Thanksgiving decoration is, and which Christmas piece is going to replace it. As we all pile into the cars and head off to the hotel the night of the big dinner, most uncomfortably full from a bountiful meal, we know that the purge is already taking place behind us.

Coming back to her home the next day, you would be forgiven if you thought Thanksgiving never happened. The pumpkins, gourds, and haybales which lay on the doorstep and welcomed us to Buffalo are all removed before the sun rises the next day. Step inside and the two happy mice plushies, dressed as pilgrims and holding a bountiful harvest, have vanished from their place at the little table. Reindeer have taken their place.

Looming in your peripheral vision is the Christmas tree. Raised and decorated before breakfast. A six-foot long festive piece of pine and ornaments now covers the mantle.  

Moving into the kitchen, the orange and brown tablecloth and napkins have all vanished. Like the dishes, when they are done with their wash, they will vanish until next year. The pumpkins decorated the table are all gone. Nothing has preplaced them yet, but whatever Beth wants to put there will be there within a day or two. The themed paper napkins are gone too. No amount of searching will reveal them.

The proud decorations of Thanksgiving are all gone by ten in the morning on Black Friday. Christmas time has come.

As we head into the holiday season once more, this particular ritual has me thinking about time. Time is the sea we swim through. As such, we have divided it into seasons, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds.

We have developed culture and society around time. Watches are fashionable. Time pieces more so, for some reason (they’re the same thing, but calling a watch a time piece will get a sucker to shell out more for it).

The reason I am thinking about this now is because I often lose track of the day. I have to remind myself what day of the week it is. Sometimes I have to look it up. For the most part I orient myself towards the nearest national holiday. In the States we have eleven. August just slides by.

A thing I heard a lot growing up is that when you are an adult, the days go by faster. That’s true. Days just don’t mean as much as they used to. They’re snowflakes.

One snowflake is beautiful, but as they build on each other the ones below get compacted until they become ice.

A whole life is like those ice core samples they drill out of Antarctica.

Time is the sea we swim in.

As I grow older, the days stop bringing new things to me. Experience with the ordinary makes it hard to see the novel. Another addition to the feeling is the sense of self that came to me now that my brain is no longer developing.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but thirty feels just like twenty-nine which feels just like twenty-eight and so on. Ages used to feel different. Seven was very different than six. Eighteen was worlds different than seventeen. Graduating college and looking at the incoming students, I thought they looked like kids.  

Now everyone looks the same.

Time is funny. We have surrounded ourselves with reminders of the time, but rarely think about what that means. Watches, clocks, clock towers, are all just to remind us what portion of the day is left. They do not warn us that it is wasting. That never seems to be anyone’s job.

Occasionally I will have what I call a “Once in a Lifetime” moment. I call it that because of the Talking Heads song of the same name. Every once in a while, I realize that I am alive, and my mind breaks from the monotony of the everyday.

When those moments come, I take the time to appreciate my heart beating in my chest, every breath of air, the strength of my muscles, and the simple pleasure of walking. It feels nice to break free from the mindlessness of doing one task after another.

In my writing, I give these “Once in a Lifetime” moments to characters who are about to die. I like giving them a moment thinking about life right before they lose it. I don’t think its mean. It’s a curtain call.

Holidays break up things too, mostly because they offer a chance to see people again. It’s like the autopilot gets switched off for a brief moment of heavy social interaction. In that way, holidays have come to mean as much as the months do.

Because of that, I go crazy when I start seeing Christmas commercials. Every year they creep further and further up the calendar. It serves to dampen the whole thing for me, as I start thinking things are closer than they are.

Then again. I know that I’m going to blink and be in a Santa hat.

Time is the sea we swim in, but I try to lift my head out of the water — even for just a moment — and take stock of things for a moment. After all, if I blink, I might just miss Thanksgiving.

Thanks for reading,

Michael