Around this time of day my eye starts to twitch and I have to hold it to make it stop. There’s the old wall clock in the living room that’s slow, needs help keeping up – then the clock in the den, I sometimes get them to chime at the same time. The trees outside make cutouts of the sky with the gray and pink shapes behind them. It’s that time of year it’s hard for us to stay up past dark. The birds have us up before 5, and start like the clocks right on cue. The coffee maker goes off and there’s work to be done, and I have to get up so I can walk before work, maybe write. I feel myself slowing down, and see it through the way others see me. It’s these swirling patterns that tighten and narrow our worlds. Why going away feels like it extends time by uncoiling us, how we see things. Why, like my dog, I have to circle clockwise three times before I can settle down: some learned trait to check my circumference before I’m able to rest. And like my dog there’s nothing really to worry about, but I still find a reason. I gave myself until 8 to end this post and I’ve read and reread it, but now I’ve lost the thread. It’s time to settle in, goodnight.

Photo by Loren Chasse, Wilhelm’s Mausoleum, Portland.

Categories: musings, writing

Tags: aging, mid-life crisis, short form, stream-of-consciousness, time, William Pearse writer