Time is Relative

 

Time is relative, it is said.  

Relative to what?  

I routinely experience the stretchiness of time as I go to the loom, and then re-enter 'life'.  Because I use weaving as a working meditation, almost before I know it, 45 minutes has gone by, the cassette tape is finished and it is time to stop weaving for a while.

It is an interesting feeling, to on the one hand have time zoom by for a while, then creep by as I wait for answers or things that I'm waiting to happen, occur.

Time becomes very elastic as the seasons change, when we move from 14 hour days of light to 14 hours of dark.

Some people are very affected by the degree of sunlight they experience and I find myself struggling through the February blahs most years.  Historically February is grey and miserable, frequently cold enough to freeze breath or warm enough that we are awash in a slurry of partially melted snow and ice.  Whoever made February the shortest month really knew what they were doing!  

We are coming up to the time change, and I am getting old and cranky enough that I really resent having my day jerked around by an arbitrary setting of the clock.  As a child I was told we did this inconvenience to 'help the farmers', then found out farmers hated it, and in fact one province simply refused to go along with the change.  Parts of my province also refuse to go along with the change.  So, why DO we do it?

When people like me object to the time change there comes a chorus of objections because *they* don't like to get up in the dark, or go home in the dark.  Sweetheart, it doesn't matter where the setting on the clock is, *I* will get up AND go to bed in the dark in the winter, so changing is literally pointless for me, even more so for people in the polar regions where it is dark 24/7 in the winter and light 24/7 in the summer.

Human beings are said to be so 'adaptable' and yet here is another example of us changing things to suit 'us' - or some of us.  

Time has become very elastic as I get older.  I find time drags as I search for my round tuit, then when I finally find it the afternoon has disappeared.  I find it interesting that even as the days drag, the hours disappear, and another day is done with my task list barely touched.

OTOH, I look at my shelves of inventory, watching as the yarn slowly diminishes, and the tea towels grow.  I remind myself that it's all good.  I don't need to carry the weight of a mountain of deadlines anymore.  I can pick and choose what I will do - and what I will not.  My reward for surviving for as long as I have.  When I discover one more thing I cannot do, I can sit with my memories and think about what I have done, and let go of the disappointment in not being able to go to conferences, teach in person, travel to distant shores.

I just remind myself to be grateful for what I have, what I have done, and give myself permission to make different choices now.  Acceptance is not a one and done deal, but a constant reminder to think, to choose, to be grateful that I am here, now, even with all the things that are happening.  They will soon happen and we will be past the chaos and stress of getting them done.  And keep weaving.  I still have way too much yarn to use up!

Today I hope to get a new weaver weaving on her loom.  I can still pass the torch, even if it is in a different way.