Time is burden. Not just at the time changes every fall and spring, where we have to convince ourselves (and the children) to get up before the roosters crow or go to bed before the sun sets… Not just because so many weeks have passed since I made a blog entry, either… Time measures our lives, and I’m getting frustrated that time is catching up with me, I’m having the feeling that I am starting to run out of it. I remember the year I decided to quit wearing a watch. It was a difficult thing for me because I am, by nature, prompt and orderly. But I found a sense of freedom in not being bound by a watch and I was still prompt and orderly (perhaps because I still had a clock in every room, including the bathroom, and also in the car). Marco, my special ed. kindergartener-in-a-fourth-grade body, is having difficulty understanding time. He is governed more by routine. One morning he was taken out of class for some testing and when he returned to class became very upset thinking he had missed lunch. We review the calendar every day with him, trying to help him understand the days of the week and months of the year, but none of it seems to sink in, because it doesn’t really matter to him (as long as he gets his lunch). At the end of every day I walk him to the bus. During our final walk down the hall he takes my hand, gazes into my eyes and asks, “School tomorrow?” “Yes,” I say. In disbelief he asks, “Again?” I chuckle and explain to him, again, the days of the week. That satisfies him, but still, as he jumps on the bus each day, he gives me one last wave and calls, “Have a nice weekend.” That is part of his routine, our routine. And so I wonder, really, how and when did I let time become a burden. And then begs the question, how can I undo it? Maybe in a way, it is being more like Marco, enjoying the events of life as they come, whenever they come.
