Good Timing

          “Time is the medium of our lives, the durable surface on which our deeds are etched. And yet time remains largely invisible to us. We can see its tracings when it has passed: when we need a haircut, when our vacation is over, when our children have grown and we have not. Sometimes we notice time, too, when it has not yet come: while waiting for the bus to arrive or the movie to begin or the test results to come back. We often imagine time, in these circumstances, as complications with the enemy. Either it moves too fast, or it moves slowly. It is something apart from us, working upon or against us. But if time is our medium, we can be its artist” Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, The Tapestry of Jewish Time (12).

            I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about time the past few days due in part because I’ve had too much time to think thanks to a cold in the middle of summer. This afternoon, I dusted off my photo boxes and placed them on my bed. Our lives seemed to be captured in stills and so my photo collection dates back to my baby photos from 1985. The collection used to be in perfect chronological order, but as I have moved from college, back to Pittsburgh, and to apartment one, apartment two, and apartment three in Charlotte, the order has been lost which I guess only supports the idea that life doesn’t always unfold organically. But I ruffled through the photos and found a few of my favorites: my parents kissing on their wedding anniversary, my nana smiling at me before my high school semi-formal, my brother cringing as I kissed him, and my friends donning caps and gowns at college graduation. A photo, much like a song, can transport you back to that moment; they are miniature time travel machines. And when you sit with twenty-four years of memories, you realize how much time has passed, how much time you have wasted, and if you are an optimist, how much more time you have left.

            As Rabbi Cardin writes in the opening passage, time is mostly invisible to us unless it has not yet arrived. We operate in the parameters of time; we wake up at a certain hour, we go to work at a certain hour, and we go to bed at a certain hour. There is, of course, never enough time in a day to accomplish everything on the to-do list. But there is, ironically, too much time spent waiting in line or sitting in traffic. And so we try to extend the productivity of our workday by drinking more coffee or sleeping at the office. We attempt to fool time by multitasking or rushing through something important. In our effort to possess time, it possesses us. Time always has the last laugh.

            I’m the type of person that thrives on a structured schedule. I like having X amount of time to drink my coffee in the morning, and I always leave at or around the same time for work. I usually take lunch around 1pm knowing that when I come back I’ll only have a few hours left in the office. I work out after work, eat dinner, and wind down before the next day starts. But eventually, one day bleeds into the next, and I feel as though I’m costarring in Groundhog Day.

            On August 9, I turned twenty-five. Yes, that’s a subtle reminder to call or text me on that day, but the age itself is also a milestone, an important piece of time. Let’s be honest, I won’t feel any different when I wake up that Monday. My muscles won’t feel a quarter century old, and I won’t rush to the nearest Hertz to rent a car. Instead, I’ll probably pull out my photo boxes and relive the birthday parties I had growing up. I look at the girl in the photo – “Ilana, age 7 – and realize how time has changed her, but more importantly how she has changed with time. And the ability to change with time provides the reassurance that you are not a slave to time; instead, as Rabbi Cardin notes, we are its “artist".

           There are thousands of “time” clichés: time is of the essence, all in due time, time is running out. But for one day, call bullshit and learn how to make the clock tick for you. After all, there is no better time than the present.