Time Finding
How does anyone ever find enough time?
The last few days haven't offered me any. There were five minutes before my kids woke up and after I had given up on grading any more bad student writing. (The good student writing doesn't demand any effort.) And I just sat at the edge of the couch holding my coffee mug.
What should I do? I thought. Should I read? There's a stack of seven books over there. Which would I choose? Should I watch my new special edition of Resevoir Dogs? Should I try to write a scene of my screenplay? I should grade more. I'm just going to sit here though. I can't...
Maybe I just sat there for five minutes because I had worked until midnight at the office for two nights in a row Monday and Tuesday or maybe I just sat there hoping I'd slip into a catatonic state where time was ALL that there was anymore.
One time, while I was visiting my in-laws, before they had given up the family farming because corporate technology had run them right out of even breaking even, i climbed up the ladder on the outside of the grain bin that used to sit beside the low slung hog barn halfway up the giant hill which is the back 80. It was full of feed and you could sit in the feed and it all shifted around you until you were sitting in not sitting on.
From where I sat, I could still see out the little door where I had climbed in. Through that door, I could see the long ridges of hills covered in ripe green cloaks of oak and sassafrass and multiflower hedges. The smoke curled in wide swaths at the top of the Electric Company stack way beyond the other side of the river. I could not even see the rows and rows of cornfields all around. Just fields dotted by Guernseys and hills covered by trees and big, big rocks. I decided to stay in that feed bin.
And I remember that I just stayed there forever. With my whole heart. I was just sitting IN the feed. Watching the unchanging landscape. Listening to the quiet and the occasional pickup truck zipping by on County Road 10. I just thought: I'm not going to think about anything, or wonder about anything. I'm just going to be here right now.
The fact is I'm still in that feed bin. Because if you let enough time pool around you, the good news is, you can pretty much stay in that time forever.
I kind of wish a little more of me were still sitting in that feed bin. It was a great place to sit in.
The last few days haven't offered me any. There were five minutes before my kids woke up and after I had given up on grading any more bad student writing. (The good student writing doesn't demand any effort.) And I just sat at the edge of the couch holding my coffee mug.
What should I do? I thought. Should I read? There's a stack of seven books over there. Which would I choose? Should I watch my new special edition of Resevoir Dogs? Should I try to write a scene of my screenplay? I should grade more. I'm just going to sit here though. I can't...
Maybe I just sat there for five minutes because I had worked until midnight at the office for two nights in a row Monday and Tuesday or maybe I just sat there hoping I'd slip into a catatonic state where time was ALL that there was anymore.
One time, while I was visiting my in-laws, before they had given up the family farming because corporate technology had run them right out of even breaking even, i climbed up the ladder on the outside of the grain bin that used to sit beside the low slung hog barn halfway up the giant hill which is the back 80. It was full of feed and you could sit in the feed and it all shifted around you until you were sitting in not sitting on.
From where I sat, I could still see out the little door where I had climbed in. Through that door, I could see the long ridges of hills covered in ripe green cloaks of oak and sassafrass and multiflower hedges. The smoke curled in wide swaths at the top of the Electric Company stack way beyond the other side of the river. I could not even see the rows and rows of cornfields all around. Just fields dotted by Guernseys and hills covered by trees and big, big rocks. I decided to stay in that feed bin.
And I remember that I just stayed there forever. With my whole heart. I was just sitting IN the feed. Watching the unchanging landscape. Listening to the quiet and the occasional pickup truck zipping by on County Road 10. I just thought: I'm not going to think about anything, or wonder about anything. I'm just going to be here right now.
The fact is I'm still in that feed bin. Because if you let enough time pool around you, the good news is, you can pretty much stay in that time forever.
I kind of wish a little more of me were still sitting in that feed bin. It was a great place to sit in.
posted by Redbaerd at 9:07 PM
1 comments
