Thursday, April 3, 2014

Tempus fugit



Prescript, April 4, 2020:  I wrote this blog piece six years ago, almost to the day.  I could have never imagined the world I inhabit at this moment with all of you.  I couldn't have imagined that for many of us, it's like the movie "Groundhog Day."  We wake up each morning and COVID-19 is still with us.  We are under a Safe at Home order and the stark impact of the change that is occurring in our lives still settles upon us.  Well, maybe I should speak for myself.  It hasn't settled upon me. Though most days appear to be reruns of the days prior, I suspect that all of us may be more than ever aware of the ticking clock.  Not just those with mechanical hands that sweep across their faces or digital seconds that fall quickly away, the modern version of sand through the hourglass, but also that clock inside. A tightly wound coil at birth that slowly uncoils toward that common inevitability of human existence.   The President of the United States, in his daily press update today, said we should brace ourselves for "the toughest week" to come and that there will be "a lot of death."  Maybe not the words I would have chosen to present the scenario for which we should be preparing, but it got my attention. On one hand, I find that time has never been such an excruciating forbearance   On the other hand, time has never been a more precious and delicious blessing.

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Time flies, as they say.  Though "they" have it wrong.  "Tempus fugit" is Latin for "time flees."  Actually, Virgil actually said, "fugit irreparable tempos" which means "it escapes, irretrievable time."  I like that better.  One added word, deeper meaning.

Time flies and we fly along with it.  How fast, you ask?  Well, much faster than I'm comfortable with.   We have these things we call a day that can sometimes feel like a lifetime.  Then there are those days that pass at whiplash speed and we ask "where in the world did this day go?"  Imagine this.  If you were to suspend in space above the equator, maybe tied to a rope attached to the edge of the moon,  you could spend twenty-four hours watching this big blue and green ball make one complete rotation. Watching 25,000 miles of changing geography pass below you.  Sort of paint-drying boring until you realize that the speed of the rotation is just over 1000 miles per hour.  Now that kind of changes your perspective, doesn't it?

Then there's this.  The earth's rotation is the snail of intergalactic speed.  The poor old tortoise.  Consider our trip around the sun.  Takes what we call a year.  That's 364 1/4 days anyway you tilt it.  And that can feel like several lifetimes, depending on what kind of year you're having.  Although earth is a mere 93 million miles from the sun, its orbit distance is just under 585 million miles, which means we're zipping along at around 67,000 miles per hour.  That's way faster than a speeding bullet and well beyond the talents of Superman.


Have you ever wondered why we don't feel this?  I mean, they're mind-boggling speeds.  Agree?  Mr. Einstein would say it's all relative and ask you to think about when you're moving along in a car on a perfectly smooth road at 60 mph.  You don't feel the movement.  Unless there is an acceleration or deceleration.  So, since the earth's rotation and orbit is at a perfectly constant speed, we don't feel the sensation of movement.  And I know that you hope and pray as much as I do that we don't have any sudden accelerations or decelerations.  That would mark a big day in our lives.  The biggest.

I won't go into the fact that our solar system is moving within our Milky Way galaxy at the rate of over 40 million miles per hour and that our galaxy is moving through the universe even faster than that.  That's not really what I wanted to say anyway.

I just wanted to talk about tempus fugit.  Time fleeing.  When my father was in his last days, as he lay in the hospital bed for the last time, the sand in his hourglass down to a few precious grains, I went to his side and asked if there was anything I could get him.  Was there anything he wanted.  Anything.  His answer will stick with me for the rest of my life.  His head slowly turned toward me and with his eyes searching mine,  he said in a quiet voice: "Time.  I want more time."

I couldn't give him that.  But in those words he gave me a gift.  I should engage in that gift more often than I do because it's simultaneously profound and simple.  We need to take advantage of every second we have on this hurtling planet.  We should grasp every hour, every day as we are flung through space, and life, at breakneck speeds.  And if much wiser folks than me say that time flees, I need to believe them.  And I need to chase that time with every ounce of strength in my body and with every thread of my soul.  I need to chase it so hard that it's constantly looking over its shoulder and wondering who in the hell is that wild-eyed lunatic on its heels.  Time can fly or flee all it wants, but I'm not going to sit idly by and watch it disappear over the horizon.

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Postscript, April 5, 2020:  I don't know that I'm going to "brace" myself for the coming week.  I plan to rise every morning and thank God for another day, enjoy my time with my wife, laugh at and take care of the discarded cats we rescued fourteen years ago from the side of a narrow, dirt road, call or text or email a few friends and family, and do those things that I believe will keep us secure, safe, and healthy.  I will pray.  I will let the sun hit my face, the breeze pass over me, and all those spring-crazed birds fill my ears with music and lift my heart with joy and hope.  And I'll tell you what I will not do.  I will not allow fear, manmade or virus-made, to enter my life at any level.  To spoil a single second of the time I've been gifted.  The coming week will pass.  This pandemic will pass.  Time will pass and, yes, as Virgil says, that passing time will be irretrievable.  But if we don't waste a second, that's okay.  Before we know it, life will return to whatever level of normal this speeding world will tolerate. And time will move on.

 Tempus fugit.  

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