Time….

… it comes…

… and it goes…

and we are often reminded that “if we blink we will miss it.”

But what exactly is it that we will miss?

I, like most folks in this western society, have grown up in a world where time dominates. The clock is the almighty ruler of our waking and sleeping, our work and play, our meals and snacks, our rest and worship, our education and much of our life experience.

against time, with time, for time….. but what is time? As I write in this current moment I can hear the second hand tick of my old clock in the distance… This tick reminding me that seconds are passing and there really is just not enough time to get everything done in my day. Excuse me while I go and silence the tick that is now not serving me in any way….

Okay, I am back and I must say I find it very interesting how I was previously unaware of the ticking of my clock until I began writing this piece. A noise that I had once used to help me sleep and calm my nightmare nerves is now a disruption to the stillness that I have come to find so valuable. Without the sound of the ticking clock, what new sounds do I hear? The waves rolling on the beach are louder, and I hear the chirping of birds that I am not sure I heard before. I can hear the steady purring of my cat as he sleeps beside the open window taking in the warm spring sun. But most of all…. I feel my pulse slowing to a calmer pace.

Oh, for the days when seasons guided our hands to the plow and to harvest, to work and to rest….

But alas, time has brought us to this place in history where the clock decides our rhythm and we no longer flow. How is it we came to giving so much power to something that is inanimate yet it functions as a dictator?

So, here I am, making daily choices, while being considerate of others, to take back the power that I have given the clock. How do I find my way to healing my inner wounds and being present with my grief and my joy if I allow the clock to determine when and where my grief is allowed? The lack of time and the chaotic busyness of our society has silenced our sorrows and our stories, and the saddest part is… we have allowed it. I look around me and I see the magazine articles and the book covers and all the social media…. pushing the image that the successful people are the busy ones wearing a plastered smile. Right? I used to buy into that whole message…. and it cost me my whole Self. Always too busy to fit in the extra time needed to sit in the presence of my true Self, and sadly, everyone around me was in the same sinking boat with a large clock at the helm. I needed out of that boat. If I was ever to find the me I was looking for then I was gonna needed to jump ship and gather whatever floating thing I could find for a life raft.

and that I did….

I took off my watch one day when a fitness coach told me I looked at it every five seconds. In taking off my watch it seemed that I took worry off with it. I stopped driving against the clock always afraid of being late (which I think might make me a better driver?) and suddenly found myself being early. I began to eat when I was actually feeling hungry and lost ten pounds… funny how that works. I now rise with the sun and rest with moon and even though I dream some terrible dreams of my own trauma story, I feel more in touch with the world around me than ever before. I work hard when the sun shines and I love to watch what grows in the cool of the day as I sit in the late evening sun. I find myself feeling a deep sense of gratitude in all things, especially in the depth of how air now moves so freely through my breath.

Slowing down, as I have, has allowed me to listen to the world around me and to that which is within me. I have heard many stories this past few years about sorrows and wounds that time has not healed. Stories that have been silenced under the belief that time heals everything. Stories that need to be spoken and silences that need to be broken. In our race against the invisible man-created competitor, we have silenced hearts and become to busy to listen to stories. When we got too busy to listen we forgot that stories are the truest way to teach.

Time, I have been told, is a “great teacher” and that “all things come in time.” But if we wait for time to teach us, I am afraid, all we will learn is that we have lost the most important things. It is not time, that forever elusive thing we lack, that will teach us anything nor give us anything. We learn by listening, seeing, experiencing. Listening to our inner voice, listening to the stories that fill the void in the world around us, listening in the stillness and the quietness. What needs to be silenced is the outspoken media that fills our space with nonsense, igniting fear and panic, creating an unsettled striving that will supposedly settle our inner longings, creating social distancing and a false sense of safety. Time, as it passes, is not healing or teaching…. it is simply leaving us empty and tired from striving for more and racing to keep up.

and when it does, what will we say of it? Will we wish for more?

I have recently heard the story of young girl whose time ran out way too soon. She was five years old and a joy in her parents hearts. One moment her laughter rang through the air and suddenly…. time stopped. I asked her parents, whose grief has endured for over fifty years, if there came a time when the depth of their loss had eased…. but not a day passes without her memory and the tears of what never was…. “would she have had children?” “What would she be like?” “Would she look the same with her long curly hair and big brown eyes?” “What would she have grown to become?” These questions will never be answered and, for these parents, time has not healed this wound. I think often of the story of this little girl and her short life reminds me of the precious moments I have had with my own children and grandchildren. I am reminded to remain grateful for every breath that I get to share with others. It also saddens me as I am all too familiar with loss and being witness to the passing of days, weeks, and months where wounds grow deeper and deeper and silence becomes the norm.

Time truly is an essence. True time is not measurable and cannot be saved nor used in advance.

So as I journey ever deeper into the healing that time did not provide, may I always be mindful of the precious essence of the moments that I have been blessed to live and breathe in.

I write today in memory of my cousin Sonja. Many years after you have gone you have become a blessing to me. Within your short story is a love that is so true, so deep, and so precious and I am deeply grateful for you. You remind me that time is not what matters….. for a day is a thousand and a thousand a day.

in gratitude,

Kim Lehmann