In All The Ways

 I woke up this first Monday of Daylight Savings Time with one clock set to the right time (oh those automatic changing phones) and the one above the stove (and likely, the one in my car still at the old time), daylight streaming in at 6:15am when just a couple days ago it was pitch black at this time. It does something to the body and the understanding of awareness.

Was my body rested enough at 6:15am on Monday versus 6:15am on Saturday? 

When you get older, these kinds of rhythm changes, even that one hour, makes a difference.

Of course, I have my usual routine and as a somewhat creature-of-habit, I try to start and end my day at the same time. Rhythm, again.

It made me wonder in all the other ways that time holds us still or propels us forward.

Time is that one commodity we can't renew.

We can try to redeem it.

There are some things I try to do in my day and week that can extend it, not waste it, and catch all the wonderful essence of life.

Yet, it is also that precious commodity that can be different things at different times.

This was a hard weekend for me, it is always changing, but it was a bit harder for me. Grief, they say, has no ending clock or lack of calendar pages. It exists.

So in my attending to mind, body, and spirit, I decided to take a drive on Saturday up to Rhode Island where my Sorors were gathering for our regional conference.

The weather was perfect, the colors on the trees were responding to the change in season, and it was a crisp, clear, relatively warm Saturday.

Time meant nothing to me in the almost two hour drive, I just turned on the radio and once I was on I-95N, just let myself wonder as I wandered.

In so doing, I realized how much we are changing, moment-by-moment. It can seem sudden, like this growing patch of gray on my head, or it can seem gradual, like spending precious moments with friends and loved ones and inevitably someone looks up and says, "oh my, where did the time go?"

We put our phones way, only grabbed them when we wanted to take a picture. 

And we existed.

As we are staring this new week, this Election Week, and this week when so many families are hurting, I am in the how-much-longer questioning of the Universe. We know that our lives if just a puff of air, literally a vapor. But in the moments we are living, it can seem eternal.

I wonder what it will take, when we will look at the passage of life and realize that now really is the right time to do all the things, the ethical thing, the right thing, the compassionate thing.

What are all the ways we can use our dash on this earth to love fiercely, act courageously, and seek the good for all humanity?

No, we can't go back and fix what never should have happened. We can learn the lessons and hopefully, like the Mwalimu, the Qoheleth of Psalm 78, have a Sankofa moment of remembrance and understanding, go back and get what we lost, learn from the mistakes, and teach the future generation.

That is what I am hoping in the right now and in the next third of my life. 

How I can use my knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in all the ways I can to be sure that I have at least impacted one life.

In the time that I have.

©2025. Sipping a latte, watching the leaves flutter in their array of warm colors, hoping for a better day
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