passing of time

October 14, 2022

Markers

There was a time in my life when, if you asked me about joining you in spending some time looking at very old tombstones, my eyes would have about to pop out of my head. Not that they would ever really pop out, but you get the idea.

However, somewhere along the lines, I started visiting very old cemeteries. And a little while after that, I noticed that many of these gravestones were works of art in a way modern ones never can be. Most of the tombstones were hand carved with an intricate script. Some were shaped into the most delicate crosses or rounded arches.

I suspect that once upon a time, they were well tended to, these grave markers, but at family died off or moved away, they fell into a forgotten state. Time allowed moss and grass to grow thicker and deeper. Sometimes a shift here or there resulted in fallen markers, but their beauty remained.

In certain circles, some people are returning to cleaning these old markers, scrubbing them, weeding around them and ensuring the grass is kept back. But, unsurprisingly, in most cases, the folks doing the work aren’t kin to those resting by the markers but do it for other reasons. For example, a few years back, it was all the rage to take the ‘rubbings’ of these stones as a way to highlight artistry. So, naturally, for the rubbings to be their best, you needed to clean up the stones, which meant cleaning around them too.

I never did that. I just meandered into the cemeteries, marvelled at the time and love spent carving out the stones and pondered those who had come before me and what their lives may have been like.

March 8, 2022

So Much Depends Upon A Black Leather Jacket

Beloved has a black leather jacket that has seen him through university, work, and fun. I am somewhat envious of him and his leather jacket. It’s like a piece of him, a best friend, and who knows what else. I do not have a single article of clothing that has been through my history with me.

I’m envious of this jacket’s other thing is how well it has weathered adventure and time and still looks fine. I’ve had fewer adventures, yet I feel far too worn and damaged.

To be fair, Beloved shows the signs of his adventure and passing of time far more than his familiar black leather jacket. It will, no doubt, remain in good shape as we continue to show the signs of time and adventures still to come.

And I have a feeling that this jacket will be with us for an extended period still, probably until Beloved no longer has any need for it, which will most likely be never.

If only I could still have my adventures and allow the time to pass while making it look as if it were nothing at all. This black leather jacket seems to weather it all with an ease that would be most incredible to have for me.

February 13, 2021

Long Enough

One of the strangest questions I’ve ever been asked is, “have you been angry long enough.” At the time I was asked, I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly. I mean, most people can’t wait to drop the anger, and here was this man asking me, honestly, if I had been angry long enough.

I had left that meeting unsure what he was really getting at and not really sure that I could ever understand the question. However, years later, I do understand.

When something awful happens to us, when something we perceive as horrible happens to us, we need to process it. At times, part of the processing involves anger. Some of us carry anger for a long time, using it as a form of fuel to keep us going.

The problem with carrying that anger is that it slowly eats at you without you realizing it. If you don’t carry it long enough, you aren’t giving voice to what has happened to you. Carry it too long, and it can destroy you.

When you are ready, you set that anger down or move it to something. That’s what he had been getting at when he asked me that question. And the answer was, at that time, no, I hadn’t been angry long enough.

June 19, 2016

Lessons Learned From Living

Someone recently shared with me life lessons he had learned.  None of these lessons were all that surprising, but it was a nice reminder about life.

He said that as a child he was told life wasn’t fair, but as a child he didn’t want fair.  He wanted everything for himself.  As he got older he learned that life seemed to favour some people and not others and in some cases there was nothing he coul do about it.  But he also learned that sometimes not being treated fair was a good thing, it keeps him humble.

When he was a teenager he wanted to be twenty in the blink of an eye.  When he was twenty he wanted to be twenty-five in the blink of an eye.  And then one day he blinked his eyes and he was sixty, time slipping past him far too quickly.  He said it was as if his children just suddenly grew up and started lives of their own without him noticing.  That’s the tricky things with time, it’s sneaks past us when we focus on details that in the end don’t really matter.

My friend said she he turned sixty and found his health declining he realized that his loyalty had been somewhat misplaced.  He had been loyal to his employer, a professor at the same university his whole life.  He out of some of the dreams his family had because the university needed him to do something else.  When he retire the university had a very small party for him, plastic forks and paper cups and some store-bought cake to be served while he received a “small desk trinket”. That’s what his years of dedication snd loyalty amounted to, nothing more.  It was his friends and family, those who sometimes had to miss out on things for his loyalty to the school that truly celebrated with him and honoured him.  He said when he got sick he realized that this had always been the case, but he was blinded by the fancy carrot dangled in front of him by the school when he was younger.

He told me that he wasn’t always happy in those days.  He was too worried about what his employer and boss thought of him.  He was too busy listening to the criticism of his work, taking it a little too close as a finite truth.  He  let others, fear and judgment run his life and it cost him opportunities of laughter and joy.  He didn’t even realize this until he was retired.  The thing he was curious about, was how many moments did he miss out on?  Those moments that passed him by without him noticing and never to come back.

He said of he could share these lessons with his former students, then he would have done them right.

Time will always go by too fast when we are busy pleasing others.  When we are busy pleasing others we rob ourselves of opportunities to be happy, know joy and be ourselves.  And Justice , well sometimes the wheels of justice turn slowly so it can be hard to see fairness in all circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in the works.  These are the reminders my friend shared with me.  They are good reminders to live life fully to the best of our own abilities without worrying about the judgments and fine details that really don’t matter in the big picture.