It’s sort of ironic that the timing’s not right for this post. For one, it’s technically Meezer Monday, and secondly, who the heck is ever ready to write—or wants to read some shyster’s (scheister’s?) blabberings—about time? The topic’s so freakin’ big, no wonder people have to wear watches to make sense of it. But c’mon, people, are we that lame that we need to see the tick-tick-tick and the second hand all herky-jerkying like Buster Keaton in order to understand that we’re all moving over/under/sideways/down/all together now?
Honestly, I tried to write this post last night, but I was too tired after a) dancing for two hours, b) watching the Yankees beat the Mets, c) writing & editing, d) chanting and e) eating a size and a half too large piece of red velvet cake. Everything I wrote was even more stoopid than this is, but heck… that’s what blogs are for. Unripened cheese.
So yes, I meant to post this last week because it was then that I was reminded of my favorite Brian Wilson-ism, and my own dorky, quasi-poetic variation on it.
Brian’s: “Time is fine when it’s in cadence.”
Pune’s: “Time is fine when it’s in candles.”
Of course, I agree with Brian. That’s a given. Anyone on the street plugged into an iPod and walking into various signage and other pedestrians because, hey, they’ve got the beat, would agree, too. Or do you even need a iPod? How many of us, I wonder, are constantly moving to and counting out an 8-count (is that too Western Civilization of me?)? Do you always have a song—or at least a rhythm—in your head, or is that just me? (And of course your heart’s your very own mini beatbox.)
You don’t have to have been around a long time to get it. Actually, longevity probably makes it worse. On Friday, one of my favorite students from the dance class I assist in was telling me how she feels when she dances. “You just hear the music, and I don’t know, you get all these butterflies in your stomach,” says this 9-year-old goddess. “You can't stop it--your feet have to move to the beat.” She’s clearly fine when she’s in cadence.
(In contrast: Taxi time is NOT in cadence. A polluted arrhythmic arithmetic of stop and start and no deodorant and pavement and worn-out shocks. Immotion sickness.)
Candle time, on the other hand, is so expansive. You can fill it with all sorts of things you wouldn’t say or do in the bug-zapping light of high-noon. Not necessarily THOSE sorts of things, you pre-verts! I mean thoughts that are a little kinder, broader…untied and diffuse and…defuse. (Um, is that a word? I guess it is now.) They're tall like exclamation marks, beginning and ends in themselves, with no record but our memory, measuring our prayers and rituals and kisses. It’s glow-as-you-go.
So, yeah, that’s Derrick last week, contemplating candle time. I love how he had to get up so close in order to figure the whole thing out. I open my eyes and he’s all cat-meditating, whipping my a$$ on that front like there’s no tomorrow.
Well, you know, maybe for him there isn’t. That big lout’s already staked his claim on the ever-present, and I can assure you he’s always got something to watch but doesn’t wear one.
Time's measured in hair here:
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