One day ago, I awoke to rain and temperatures not even reaching 40 degrees. Time turned and the snow turned to rain and the black roads turned to white.
Today, the first weekend of spring and the snow has turned to rain and perhaps back again.
Two days from now, the temperature is to return to the upper 60s, melting away the snow and ice.
This isn't really about the weather. Certainly the weather plays an aspect into this, wishing I could have frozen time when I was sitting on my porch, filling my mind with words and warming my soul from the outside. I enjoyed it then, but not as much as I should have. It was a moment undone that I wish I could redo just so I could appreciate it a little more. Maybe then I wouldn't have been annoyed with the wind whipping my still wet hair across my face. Maybe then the wind chimes from the door below our apartment would have sounded more musical than distracting. If I had known what the next day would bring, would I have frozen time?
Twenty minutes ago I was wrapped in my cocoon of blankets and pillows, buried in a world of words when I started thinking about the idea that time outside of my own stands still when I am not there. Sometimes when I am in a busy store, or walking down a people packed street I imagine that mine is the only life that is moving. That is meant to be narcissistic but rather a thought that the unknown means there isn't a known. I see these people, these strangers, and while in reality I know that they too have lives outside of those moments where our worlds collide, I have this jaded thought that maybe they only exist in those moments.
When I run through neighborhoods or drive down country roads I see houses and unless I know the people who live there or see the people who live there, it is hard to remember that people do live there. It is as if because I do not know, then that is frozen in time, exactly how I see it at that moment. In the same regard, if I see something I know, little kids or foreign countries, it is all too easy to believe that when I leave for any extended amount of time then when I return those people and situations will be exactly the same when I return. That tow-headed not quite five year old will be exactly the same when I return six months later. Yet, the child standing in front of me is not the same as they were six months ago. Time does not freeze.
I like to travel and I tend to travel. It is not the extravagant backpacking through Europe or off on beach vacations on remote islands. Most of the time it is continuing to carve the 800 mile path between my artsy- not by my talent- apartment and my family's house in the OH. The majority of the time, that path is carved by my car but sometimes I am blessed with the luxury to fly. Airports are a great clash of cultures and people. They are filled with people who are going anywhere and nowhere all at the same time and never at the same time in one swoop. Yet, inconsequently airports are one area where I do not have the tendency to believe that time is frozen.
I see the business people, lugging their briefcases, tugging their carryon rolling bags, and constantly on their Blackberry or iPhones. I see the families letting their small children run amuck in the hopes they will turn into angels once they board their plane. I see the bleary eyes college students catching late night flights in hopes of spending a seemingly short weekend at home. I see the happy couples too wrapped up in their own love story to even think another world exists around them. I see.
Maybe thats the point. Maybe we are supposed to see, to realize others have stories. Maybe we need to come to term with the fact that time does not stand still because time is meant to be lived. And not just in our lives, but in others as well. When I see people, when I am so wrapped up in my own story, maybe time doesn't stand still so I will recognize the importance of other people having stories as well.
Two days ago I wished time would freeze so I could go back to that moment of warmth and sunshine. And maybe thats the point.
Life is supposed to be lived.
