On magical methods of time expansion
We’re in the waning of the year, and the days are getting a little shorter and cooler. The urgency for daylight is finding me squeezing in a quick walk between dough tasks, popping out onto the porch to eat my lunch and read some poems, and grabbing a skateboarding jaunt around the park with Leo after school. As a former long distance runner and avid bicyclist (some of you may remember my cargo biking bread delivery days), I got a little stuck on thinking I always want to walk at least 4 or 5 miles, I want to ride my bike for a couple hours, or spend half the day reading under a tree to get the deep satisfaction I crave from time spent outdoors.
In reality, I’m noticing time spent outside offers a clever expansion. The way time passes when I watch some finches in the neighbors loquat tree feels differently paced. A lap around the park watching the shifting clouds and the ombre shades of falling leaves slows the rushing river of chronology around me. How is it that in only 18 minutes, my son has rolled around the perimeter of the park 5 times already? That in a mere 9 minutes I can walk all the way from my house to the coffee shop and be out of my quiet house and met with a smiling friend? I only had 16 minutes to spare between afternoon errands, but I finished a whole chapter of my book on a park bench, and felt I had traversed other worlds an order of magnitude greater than my crunched schedule. In the darker evenings as I read aloud to my kids, the moments just flick by slower.
I know I often write along similar lines, presence and intention, mindfulness and noticing, spending time reading, being outdoors and making food and of course bread. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of things to think about or say about those few but all encompassing topics. I’m always relearning the things I ought to know by now. A little bit matters, a little bit counts, a little bit can feel like a lot sometimes. The daily work will always be the listening to and reiterating of the big letter t Truth, and the quiet discarding of all the sticky things (mostly ego, why is it always the ego) getting in the way of what could or should really matter.
I hope you develop tricky ways to melt clocks like Salvador Dali and find yourself staring at a cool leaf, watching the path of a snail, grabbing that brisk little walk, that poem or chapter and cup of tea for yourself. I’ll be here living by the omnipresent 20 minute timers of the baker and the onward march of the fermentation schedule, twisting that ever shifting kaleidoscope of time and temperature.