One of my favorite things, and it's just a little thing, is extra time. Last week, Friday came around and I was dragging. What a long week it had been. And yet, it was the end of the last day of the week and I was not done yet - two client calls yet to accomplish before quitting time. I love my clients, but last week exhaustion was claiming me. After several meetings, I checked my email, and, fantastically, both clients asked to reschedule. Hallelujah!
Suddenly, I received the gift of extra time. Two solid, beautiful hours of new opportunity. Has this ever happened to you? When faced with time unexpectedly gifted to you, do you dream of one thousand things you can do with that time? It's like finding a $20 bill and, before you can stop yourself, you have spent it four times. That's what happens to me with extra time.
I begin dreaming lavish thoughts of cozy bubble baths, meeting friends spontaneously for cocktails or a late lunch. I think about finally cooking chateaubriand as described in a Julia Child cookbook I have not opened in years (not since I made the astoundingly delicious scallop souffle for Easter 12 years ago). Or, I wonder if I can finally spend the time to figure out the stock market and make some smart investments. Then, I will be rich indeed and no longer in need of extra time.
After the euphoria subsides, practicality seizes me. I should really wash the kitchen floor and vacuum the living room now that I have this extra time. Or, does it make more sense to fill in the cracks in the cement around the outside of the house? I started that project when?, two or three weeks ago, and only finished half of it. The bathroom needs to be cleaned, too. If I do that today, I will have more time on Saturday to finish the cementing of the outside of the house.
Suddenly, this extra time is kind of a downer. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I was talking about how extra time is one of the little things that fill me with joy. There must be more fun options to consider.
Maybe I should listen to an opera. Each one is three or four hours long. That's what my dad used to do - lie on the floor with earphones on listening to opera while following along by reading the libretto. I never tried to do that. Usually, I listen to an opera while I'm cleaning. On one of those clean-the-entire-house kind of Saturdays when I clean for four hours and then cook for two more hours.
My favorite opera is Carmen. I will try that one.
I tried this last week. Two things dawned on me pretty quickly. First, I don't have the libretto. And, if I did, I do not know French well enough to know what's going on. It is hard to understand without seeing the opera singers acting it out. And, for me, I am more interested in trying to sing along reading a translation. Second, Carmen is scary. It all flooded back to me, how, as a little girl, I listened to Carmen with my dad. The guy stabs her and kills her at the end. She screams a terrible scream when it happens. That is why the music from this opera always scared me. Best not to lie on the floor and listen to an opera.
Time to regroup. One of my other favorite things to do is to listen to music and sing at the top of my lungs. My sister, Ann, and I used to do this. Hmmm. What did I feel like singing along to last week when I found some extra time? Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, and INXS. Interesting combination.
I had a great time with myself. As a bonus, the cancelations of my clients came about at the exact time my husband was out of the house serving his clients. The house was empty. I could crank it up! I grabbed one of the cats and danced around when I sang. Turned out, I was not in the mood to lie on the floor and sing. I needed to dance around.
While I danced and sang, I remembered other occasions I was gifted extra time. The snow days when my son was little. There were only a few, historic instances when my workplace also closed for bad weather. We invented a special song for those days. I woke my son up singing the special, "(Name of Company) is closed" song.
Those days were the best. The most appreciated extra time ever came on those days when all three of us - my husband, Steve, my son, Owen, and I - stayed home together. Sometimes we played outside in the snow. Sometimes I baked cookies. Sometimes we sat on the floor in the living room eating soup and watching our favorite movies. I never ran out of things to do with the extra time back then.
Now, the gift of time lifts me out of my consciousness into reveries of things and people past. Today, I was gifted with two free hours! (again). A good white wine and a sleeve of saltine crackers drew my attention. I grabbed them without thinking. Once I sat down, I felt the significance. White wine, the best end to every evening for my mother who passed a few weeks ago. Saltines crackers, the snack Ann and I used to sneak to our room during the day to enjoy under the covers while giggling and telling stories. Times past.
Have I mentioned Steve does not believe in time? It is just a construct people invented to make us clock in, he says. Hence, the significance of this Salvador Dali-esque clock hanging in our kitchen. Even when we first bought it and it actually worked, you could never figure out what time it was. That never mattered, because, according to Steve, time is irrelevant.
Maybe, but I wish for more real time with my mom who had dementia. The times when we talked about music and movies and books and birds and gardening. She was not able to give me tips on any of these things for at least the last five years.
And Ann. I wish for more real time with Ann. The kind of time we had before she disappeared into the world of pain and illness so completely that she was no longer herself. To read more about those two topics, check out my grief blog, in particular, the first post Never-ending Loss.
I believe in time. I appreciate time, too. It helps people gather in the same place at the same time. It allows me to mark off moments in my calendar to enjoy other little things like coffee, lunch, walks, and fun with my friends and family. It gives to me each day when I wake up, and I receive it gratefully. And, extra time, definitely bursts my heart with happiness when it unexpectedly appears.
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