Time Is On My Side – Sometimes

/ roughwighting

 

time, time flies

If I was a genius scientist, I’d find a way to prove that you can’t “time” – time.

Time – as in seconds and minutes, hours and days – goes slower or faster depending on the, um, time.

Almost everyone who exists on this planet knows that fact, but for some reason, the supposedly brilliant scientists throughout the world have not been able to show evidence of its validity.

Here’s my scientific proof.

While I worked on a chapter of my book Twin Desires, seconds flew by as Sandra and Blakes’s dilemma unfolded:

Twin Desires, romantic suspense, self-publishingAs he peered across the deserted street, a movement caught his eye.  There, by the ornamental ivy that flanked the front door.  Adrenaline rushed through his veins.  He leaned forward slightly, all his senses on alert.  He was fully awake now.  Staring hard into the pitch black, he was sure he saw something move. 

Blake froze.  Only his eyes moved to glance up at the tops of the trees.  He ruled out wind off the bay. The night was still and shrouded in fog.  The muffled, mournful sound of a foghorn floated over the water.

Blake flipped off the interior light before opening the car door.  Closing it noiselessly, he scanned the exterior of the building.  Sandra’s front door was open.  Shit.  His instincts were right. 

Racing across the street in a crouch to keep a low profile, Blake then pressed himself tightly against the wall of the building, making sure no one was around.  He entered cautiously.  Sandra’s apartment was in total darkness.  He cursed the pale blue shirt he was wearing.  Blake paused for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to his new surroundings.  Keeping his back to the wall, he moved carefully to his right and instantly regretted it.

He’d stepped on something soft, and loud.  An animal screeched, and Blake’s pulse jumped.  A cat scampered off in painful protest.  Damn.

There. 

A dark figure sprinted soundlessly across the room. 

The characters helped my fingers fly off the keypad, so I ignored a few lunchtime hunger pangs, and only stopped because the doorbell rang for a postal delivery. I checked the clock then – what seemed like 15 1/2 minutes of writing a few chapters showed up as 3 hours, 20 minutes in “real” time.

Of course I’m smart enough to know that time doesn’t stand still.A Wrinkle in Time, time

Instead, time somehow reasserts itself, wrangles itself around me, wrinkles itself, as Madeleine L’Engle explains in her famous Y.A. book, A Wrinkle in Time.

Last summer, my family and I rented a place at the N.J. shore for a week. Turns out that we got gypped, because all of us swore we’d only been there for 3 1/2 days before it was time to pack up and go home. That feeling was not just a misconception. Perhaps if just one or two of us felt that way, we could ignore the strange time differential. But all 12 of us experienced the time shift; ergo, we all witnessed the scientific secret that…

… time wrinkled while we stayed in that sunny happy rental on Central Avenue.

time, family, ocean, Ocean City, NJ

Wrinkled Summer Time.

But when I returned to work the next week, don’t you know that five days became eight, just like that?

Here’s hoping that the upcoming summer doesn’t get too wrinkled in your world.

 

35 thoughts on “Time Is On My Side – Sometimes”

  2. I feel wrinkles in time a lot. Like my anticipation of a vacation…time drags all the way through the weeks leading up to the vacation. Then vacation week – pfft! And it’s done. I would also never have believed that I’d be 56. All that time – pfft. What happened to my 20s and 30s I wonder?

    Like

  3. Our older granddaughter turning 5 today has me shaking my head wondering how 5 yrs could go by in the blink of an eye…?

    Like

      • Pam, Did we read Wrinkle in Time with Mrs. Nixon or Mrs. Derowski? Thanks for helping out my wrinkled memory…

        Like

        • My memory is so wrinkled, I didn’t know we read it back then! I first became a fan of M. L’Engle as an adult, reading her amazing journals (like The Summer of My Great Grandmother).

          Like

          • I read it in 5th or 6th – probably 6th – not as a whole class, but as a supplemental treat for those who were “readers”…for me, at that age, it was a mind opening book. And, now – thank you! – I will look up her journals.

            Like

  5. Pam, It’s easy to measure the wrinkles in time, and it’s quantifiable…I just look in the mirror and start by counting them on my face, then my neck, then my arms, hands, etc., etc. when I get to my feet, I stop counting and just multiply by 2 to cover those I can’t see in the mirror or because of failing eyesight. Works pretty good! Ed PS: when are we getting the gang together for lunch again. Seems like it’s been forever since we last broke bread! E.

    >

    Like

    • Well, your scientific way of measuring the wrinkles in your time works just as well as the scientists’. Actually, yours is better, since the scientists have no published texts that give us any other recourse! (And you’re right – ‘time’ has gotten in the way of the gang having a good time together. Let’s get on that!)

      Like

  6. Far too many wrinkles lately, on my face, in my mind and yes in time as well! Not only does time slip away during happy vacation times but each night I stop and wonder, where did this day go?

    Like

    • Yes, we’re not alone. I researched and discovered that the phrase ‘time flies’ came from a Roman poet who wrote that ” tempus fugit” (time flees). In 1835, Shakespeare threw a clock out the window and came up with the saying “time flies” in 1836. I’m sure there’s been a wrinkle in time since time began!

      Like

  7. The time has come once again to say to my grandson, as I said to all three of my sons every year on the last day of school before summer vacation….think about this moment, right now you have the whole summer ahead of you, you’ll blink and before you know it you’ll see BTS (Back to School) ads and it will be September. (Actually, school starts in August now – what an injustice!). My mom always said, once it’s June, it’s September, once it’s September, it’s Christmas. I’ve always taunted my kids with the threat of BTS, my coined expression, and last year the Macy’s ad campain was BTS – who knew?!!! We wait, what seems like endless winters for summer and then summer flies by. Time to enjoy every sunny moment! I always enjoy that day where every single summer day is right there in front of us. I hope my kids enjoy that moment in time as well. Thanks Pam, for taking the time to bring us short stories, long stories and allow us to enjoy our time reading your insights and imagination!

    Like

    • How I love your (and your mom’s) philosophy on time. It’s so true: once it’s September, it’s Christmas – once it’s June it’s September. ACK. So somehow, we need to STOP time a little every day, stop the wrinkling, and enjoy the sensation of the second.

      Like

  8. I get that same feeling of time stopping when I’m out photographing and I think I’ve figured out a way to make my days “longer”: if I get my morning run in, then my day certainly feels longer. I think it’s the extra energy I feel after working out—everything just kinda falls in place. Interesting concept here.

    Like

  9. Totally agree with you on the time thing. And then there’s the timeless thing when meditating and time doesn’t exist at all as we know it! But, never mind all that. I was fascinated with the photo of all you beautiful people. Clicked on it to enlarge and stare and smile. Then *poof* I was there with you. Excuse me, time to go for a swim…

    Like

    • Yoga and meditation – during those activities, I’m with you: there’s actually no such thing as time. Which is really wonderful.
      Thanks for visiting us at the ‘shore’; that’s my 90-year-old mom in the front, wearing turquoise. My role model!

      Like

  10. I’m smiling at this wonderful depiction of something we’ve all experienced. I actually read something recently by an author who believed we could create time with the right mindset. I’m definitely not there yet, but I certainly treasure those fleeting moments when time seems to fly.

    Like

    • Hmm, I’d like to meet that author. Creating time would be quite a miracle. But it would probably take us a long ‘time’ to figure out what would be the most important thing to do with that added time, wouldn’t it?

      Like

  12. Sometimes I find time wrinkles a little scary. When ‘real time’ genuinely feels like it doesn’t match my own perception I’m like, ‘woah…what happened there?!’ It’s like I went somewhere, like I wasn’t in ‘this’ world or something. On the plus side, realising how bendy time is makes me sure time travel can’t really be that difficult…love and hugs, Harula xxx

    Like

    • Well, I whisper, I truly believe in the possibility of time travel. I’m just a little too scared to try it, because I really do like being in the time I’m in, as wrinkly and wiggly as it is.

      Like

    • Yes, that would be a good sci fi book, in which with the click of our fingers, we could elongate time when we’re having fun, and shorten it when we’re not. Right now, it seems to work the other way!

      Like

Comments are closed.