Last week, I wrote about the beauty of life. There is something special to me about Spring. When the sun begins shining its essential vitamin D onto my skin, I’m forced into thinking about how lucky I am to be alive. While the other seasons hold a different and wonderful place in my heart, Springs reminds me of renewal. It reminds me of the promises to come. And it reminds me to be grateful for all that I have.

Biblioteca

Last Thursday after work, my kids practically begged me for a trip to the library. While we usually save those visits for the weekend, there was not one bone in my body that wanted to say no to them. After all, we had no after school activities that day. We had the time. And with jubilant faces, we walked out with armfuls of various books. The first one I chose to devour from my stack was Damon Young’s The Art of Reading. I’m only about a quarter of the way through it, but for a bibliophile like me, it is such a delightful read. Thus far, it’s not merely about reading, but also about writing. And … well … you know … I do that quite often as well.

In Young’s chapter on Patience, he writes about the concept of time. Time is simple, yet complex. As I wrote in a blog post last summer, “Time is elusive. Time is relative. But time can also be measured. For instance, seasons come and go. Every year, in my neck of the woods, I know I’ll experience Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Seasons here are cyclical. And yet, if you look back in time, years are not so easily put back together.”

Time is easy to measure with our left brain, in mathematical and precise seconds, minutes, and hours. It’s also complex when we view it with our creative and imaginative right brain. And we only truly tap into our human potential when we experience time – and all of life – with both sides of our brain’s neurons firing in unison.

Duality

The duality of time is a notion that can get me as lost in my thoughts as that of Spring renewal. I’m grateful for both sides of it. And as more time passes in my life, I’m more keenly aware of how each moment is a wonderful piece of the puzzle that is me. As Damon Young wrote, “Clock time dominates, but its neat ubiquity is partly an illusion.” And while each day that passes brings me one day closer to my inevitable ending (memento mori), it also brings me one step closer to finding the true meaning of my existence. And while time may feel like Jello in my hands, I promise to learn to flow with it, instead of fighting against it, with both sides of my brain.