Time Change

Time change

We gained an hour yesterday, a little Halloween gift from the ghosts and goblins, a touch of magic in the air. Presto chango, here’s a little more light in the morning. It’ll help you feel like a touch of spring ahead with this falling behind. The catch is now it’s getting dark at 4! Ah well. So time is a little off in the household. Sofia’s meowing away in the early am. (Though I don’t think it’s the time change with her; I think it’s mice getting in somewhere that she wants to terrorize and feast upon.) Richard’s finding it hard to sleep, was up and at ‘em at 4 this morning. I followed shortly thereafter, wide awake at 4:30, so I got up, meditated and breakfasted with him, and saw him off to his job. Around 7:30 I took a walk and it was magnificent out. Clear, fresh, new. The time change looked very good on things. No feeling of death and decay despite the denuded trees. They looked very natural, very like themselves. And oh their silhouettes looked so sharp and bold against the Diebenkorn blue in the sky. And the eastern larches on top of our hill shimmered gold in the sunlight. Man. It’s still a miracle to me that they lose their needles. A deciduous needle-bearer. Magical.

Time change.

You barely notice time changing here. That’s the appeal. Eastern standard, daylight savings are meaningless terms. We’re on nature’s clock here, we turn it over to her. I like that. And without any television, with just periodic check-ins to podcasts to see what repetitive sturm-und-drang the world is frothing up for its addictive amusement, it helps us keep a distance from manmade definitions of both time and change. I’ve always felt a little apart from the regular pace, a “regular” life. Maybe that’s why I chose an artist’s life (or it chose me, who knows). At different stages of my life so far, I’ve enjoyed the nomadic aspect of it, home being the job itself and wherever that took me. I’ve also enjoyed the artist’s schedule that really isn’t a regular 9-5, you have a rehearsal schedule and then it shifts to a performance schedule. And that schedule is completely different if I’m doing something on stage, on television, or on film. Everything’s always changing. And then there’s the stepping into the specific schedule or 9-5 of my character. I get to taste someone else’s life for a period of time and then shuck it. Thanks for the visit, thanks for the change, been great getting to know you, and know me a little bit more in the process, and so, so long, I’m off to the next time change. An additional plus is if I’m doing a character from another time in history, I get to indulge my desire to time travel, an itch I’ve had since I was a kid. Glory, glory, hallelujah. (Funny how that phrase just came up because I’ve frequently been drawn to the American Civil War.)

Time change.

I love the seasons marking the change of time, the circular, comforting change, to be expected. I love how the skies change. Now Orion’s coming back at night like a welcome old friend returning to celebrate the holidays. My birthday’s coming up. There’s another time change. On December 2nd I’ll be 55. Unbelievable. Aging, such a weird thing. I don’t think there’s a lot of vanity attached to it, no regrets, or nostalgic longing for days gone by, an aching for youth. But I did share a belief I have with a friend the other day, a magical belief - somewhat embarrassing to admit, but it’s there nonetheless - that aging, when it comes up in my mom, or my Aunt Sis, and other relatives or friends of my mom and dad’s generation, is something that they can cast off like a common cold and after the cold disappears they will get young again, that aging is really reversible. A magical setting the clocks back. Presto chango. (I can picture my mom reading this section right now and saying: “It’s only a number. I’m going to be around for a long time.” And I’m sure she will be. She seems to defy time and aging.)

Time change.

The same friend with whom I shared my magical aging belief the other day has been and continues to be a stalwart midwife in a creative becoming of mine and in rereading my piece-in-progress he noticed that an additional theme woven into it turns out to be that of aging. No accident there, no matter how unintended. Aging. I think I like how time is changing me. I don’t know if I give it a hell of a lot of attention except at moments like this when I’m specifically reflecting on it. Inside – and I know I’m not alone in this – most days I feel younger, more buoyant, more youthful as time goes on, while outside, well whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, I’m just thrown. The reflection back does not jibe with how I feel inside. ‘So this is what the world sees,” I think. And now that I think about, this inside/outside didn’t jibe when I was literally literally “youthful.” My youth may have looked young from the outside, but inside I felt so old and jaded and “know it all”, heavy with important, meaningful thoughts. How funny that time has brought a presto chango in me that what was on the inside in youth is now on the outside of the 54 year old me and what was on the outside is in. Magic.

Time change.

There’s a numerological belief I don’t quite get, but that I find intriguing, namely that there’s some alignment we’re in now that is almost identical to that at the time of the American revolution and that this period of turmoil and shifting ground and crumbling foundations is to be expected and will continue for the next 15 years. It feels right. It certainly explains a lot – Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck being compelled to rewrite Thomas Paine’s works, any side to any argument being so “up in arms”, charging that the other side is being disloyal, being un-American. I think it invites one to not expect or force quick fixes on anything, it urges one to ride it out, to be compassionate maybe, kind possibly, patient, to remember to laugh, keep a sense of humour. What appeals to me most is the idea that time changes and then again it doesn’t. People in different times, under different circumstances are forever springing ahead and falling behind. There’s a timelessness about it. So why not enjoy the rollercoaster ride. Or find a still center. Or maybe a little bit of back and forth between both of those things.

Time.
Change.
Time to change.