She
had troubles with time, specifically making it stay in one place long enough.
Time was like water scooped by the cupped handful to her lips, and she was
always thirsty.
Certainly there had to be better
ways to contain it, to keep time from running out on her, because before her
eyes her babies grew into people with curtained minds and little
predictability, and her friends shifted out of focus in the narrowed frame of
her everyday life, and her face in the mirror seemed no older to her but to
strangers (she realized) she must have appeared grown.
She did not feel grown, not even
after the ring on her finger became second skin, not after the bi-weekly
paychecks or the map of scars her children left on her tender belly. Not after
the mortgage payments or the hospital trips or the way her body settled into
softer lines, heavier shoulders.
She felt like a woman on her knees,
hands scrabbling at the time rolling away from her, pennies in the street. She
watched her babies grow and cried “Where did the time go?” and everyone rolled
their eyes. Her children were still so young. But when she described them, the
numbers on her lips astounded her. They were still galloping toward adulthood,
and here she was, grasping at the hem of their shirts.
Meanwhile she watched her parents go
grayer. She flipped through old pictures, and in the pictures her father looked
as young as her husband, and she and her mother could have been twins. But the
pictures were beginning to yellow. They weren’t on the shelves but in the old
albums, the ones she only pulled out every few years. She still found a deep
vein of denial when thoughts of their eventual deaths niggled at her mind. Her
parents would live forever: This was the magical thinking of a child.
So with one hand she grasped at
each generation: the one above, the one below. Any way she looked at it, time
felt short.
The images and metaphors are astoundingly apt and powerful. Thank you for sharing this. Your writing here reminds me a little of Virginia Woolf. I'm glad you're back from vacation!
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Did you just put me in the same sentence as Virginia Woolf?!?
DeleteThank you for your encouragement and kind words, Katie. I treasure you.
This is beautiful, Beth. You always captivate me with your writing.
ReplyDeleteLove you Carly. Thank you for your encouragement.
DeleteI was planning to write a post tonight and after reading this, I think I need some time. Because all the beautiful words are RIGHT. HERE. Stop being selfish with them. For real--this is beautiful. I mean, that doesn't even do it. So I'm done with this comment because you took all the words.
ReplyDeleteThat made me laugh. I had to give myself a prompt in the absence of your NSSS link up...it was "time." I highly encourage you to take the prompt and go write, girl!
DeleteThank you for describing my thoughts exactly. I'm scrambling to figure out what happened to all my time, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by, Anita. I owe you an e-mail.
DeleteWow-- I found this a very powerful description of the passing of time.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nina!
DeleteThis is perfection.
ReplyDelete