When half my body stopped working, I had to reorganize the whole of my life. It now takes five steps from the refrigerator to the kitchen sink instead of the normal two. So doubling the time is one way to think of the new mode of organizing my life.
Life pivots on constructs about time. There is little time we say. I must organize/prioritize activities efficiently within the meager allotment. Yet in my new world a century passes between when I lift my leg and lower my foot to the step below, or so my brain says. I have my own felt sense of time and it disregards societal constructs. This gives me new opportunities to form a luxurious construct of time.
“Your brain is a liar,” said my very first physical therapist as she helped me understand why I thought the center of my body was two feet to the right of my shoulder. I didn’t like her accusation, but she had an earnest, cute face and I recognized her truth from the confidings of many clients who tell me their fears. Their brains lie too. Lying brains and racing hearts say that time will run out for school, the work project, the relationship, traffic, life with a degenerative disease, and just life in general. The length of anything, including life, is uncertain, but the construction of time, especially it’s voluptuous adequacy is an organizational choice made by the creative self. I have chosen to tell my brain that my foot is allowed to move at its chosen speed and that my center must be determined by the method of over-correcting by two or three inches to compensate for my brain’s lies. I have reorganized my brain, footsteps, my center of gravity and my descriptions and expectations of time.
Recently I was taking a scenic walk with a companion who walked gracefully at my pace, and commented that he was enjoying the experience of taking things in at a slower speed. How interesting that we seem unable to slow down without some drastic prompting, such as another person’s brain meltdown. Brains lie about all kinds of things: speed, directions, acquisitions, memories, sensations, relationships. They say we need more, and better, and are failing to get them sometimes.
In a sentimental song, Jim Croce yearned for time reorganization too:
If I could save time in a bottle—
The first thing that I’d like to do is to save every day
‘Til eternity passes away—
Just to spend them with you
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you—
A good reorg is always available and I tell myself that the time is already in the bottle, ready to be used as I choose. My lying brain tells me my step lasts for eternity or, alternately, not long enough. My lying brain, my wobbly leg and my love of sappy songs must be lined up by my intentions, placed on the right side of my own distortions and others’ constructs. I am separate even from my own internal and external perceptions. The creator/organizer within me decides what view of time to hold. I’ve made that intention. Now I just need to enshrine it in a song–the love song to all that I have time to embrace and the life that in turn rewards me with my own experience of time.
I feel privileged to be living a slower life, one where I have the time to take five steps instead of two. In the end I hope to be a slow time evangelist, pulling more people into this gently paced orbit. One where time is the speed of love. Organizing time is ultimately about bringing more love to life.
We think of making time for love, but making a different felt sense and meaning of time is love itself. I’ll lower my foot to the tick of a clock with loving hands.
