Time

At 5:18 this morning, it was still summer; at 5:19, it was fall. Who said? I mean, why not 5:25 a.m. or 9:53 p.m. or yesterday or tomorrow? Next week? The whole concept of time seriously confuses me. A friend of mine once explained it this way: “Time exists so everything doesn’t happen at once. ” So far, it’s the only thing that makes any sense to me.

I live—or feel like I’m living—in dozens, probably hundreds, of times on any given day. An old song comes on the radio and, suddenly, I’m the person I was when the song was popular. Lifting into downward dog in yoga class, I’m roller-skating in Central Park. Right now, typing, I’m ten, walking home from school. Which is real?


Then there's that disconcerting Chutes and Ladders sensation, in which my granddaughter Heidi went from being a baby to Saturday, her ninth birthday. Where did that time go?










Right now, I’m sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, anxious for news that her Caesarian birth went okay. Now the nurse comes to say she’s here! We can see her!

Now all of us hurrying down the hospital corridor—Kate said, later, we sounded like a herd of elephants coming.

Now holding her for the first time, feeling the grip of her tiny fingers around mine.