The Hourglass of Our Life

/ roughwighting

post about time, hourglass, sands of time, https://pixabay.com/illustrations/hourglass-time-sand-hour-1938677/Noupload“Time will tell.”

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

“There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

“Your time is up.”

What, exactly, will time tell? Will it tell me that my days are numbered? Personally, I’d like to think that my days are worded. My days are stories, one-by-one as a child, then a dozen, then hundreds as the years roll on.https://pixabay.com/photos/sky-clouds-nature-sun-light-beam-3736565/

I’m loaded with hundreds of stories to tabulate in the recess of my worded mind. But numbers do nothing to show the light, the darkness, the glimmering shadows in my days and years. No measurement can express the pain and joy, the immensity of living, of loving, of cracking through the darkness of existence to join the bright, warm, embracing light.

I’ve seen that final/beginning encompassing light, briefly, a few times. Close to death? At the time, it seemed as if I was closest to life when I was sucked into a tunnel, where sound disappeared, as well as recognition of who I was and where I belonged. Instead, I floated toward a sweet emptiness that counted no minutes or hours, but instead told a story of pure love, pure bliss, unknowable in our waking hours.

But am I wasting your time, and mine, guessing about when our time is up, yours and mine? Or will our time be down, down to the basics of our end, or hopefully our beginning? Can time be wasted when we write our stories and share them within ourselves and then to the outside world?

Stories are the hourglass of our life, sifting through the thin glass of existence. When our time is done, are we turned upside down, to begin new stories all over again?

What do you think? 

romantic fiction

Thank you to all who guessed “the rest of the story” in my last post: The Trash Plan. The winner is Pete Springer, who will receive a copy of my book TWIN DESIRES. Pete’s detailed description of the middle and end of my flash fiction was fun, with not an ounce of cheese.

116 thoughts on “The Hourglass of Our Life”

  5. I love this: “I’d like to think that my days are worded. My days are stories, ”
    That’s how I feel, too.
    And I feel like time –or at least our perception of time–is not a constant. We can dream lifetimes in a few seconds.

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  6. Powerful post, Pam, very reminiscent of my Life Journey. Your description of what you have experienced made me say wow out loud, to tell you the truth. My days are stories too, unfolding one after the other seamlessly, all heading toward the reward of New Life, Light, and Love in ways we only dream of. Yet there too, there have been many moments where I have floated in that state of euphoria, which I know to be real. From the sounds of it so have you. Wonderful write!!! Thank you so much for sharing!! Keep on shining your light! xo

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  7. Whew! You have given me a lot to think about this morning . When this life is over I’m coming back with all the wonderful experiences and lessons I’ve learned and sharing all. Look out world!!!

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  9. So lovely…the whole post…and for me, especially this: “…I’d like to think that my days are worded. My days are stories, one-by-one as a child, then a dozen, then hundreds as the years roll on.” So lyrical and lovely. Thanks, Pam. 😊

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  10. You and probably most of the commenters here have “worded” minds. I like the idea that using our gift of words is never a waste of time and LA’s reply that stories live on, extending time. Even the Good Book observes the storytelling motif: we spend our years like a “tale that is told” (Psalm 90:9) When my time here is done, I want to be turned upside down in a different dimension though–no pain, no pressure, no running out of time.

    Once again, you and I have synchronicity, both of us using the hourglass as an image in our blogs this week. But of course! 😀

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  14. My sand is running out, and ready to turn over that proverbial hour glass for a second chance. Your writing always motivates me to move beyond Wordle ❤️

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    • Wordle is not a story – just a “number” of letters, thus I never got caught up in it like so many others. May your sand keep on pushing through the glass bottle (slowly) – you’re not done yet! ❤

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    • Hi Mike, yes you guessed that perfectly. I gave my writing students a lovely photo of an hourglass, and just suggested that we write what comes from the image. Mine is just one of many beautiful thoughts on mortality/eternity, and what’s in between (and after).

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  16. Really enjoyed this post, Pam. I like the imagery of the hourglass as our own sands run towards inevitable emptiness on one end, but the equally inevitable fact of the other end then being full. A full life is a good life. Do we turn over and start over? Time – of course – will reveal all.

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    • Clever – yes, “time will reveal all.” Or , we won’t even know when the hourglass is turned over for us to start again. After all, do you remember the turning of the hourglass when you were born? :-0 Fun to think “outside the box” (or in this case, outside the hourglass). 🙂

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  17. I love your beautiful mind and heart, Pam. Being in the midst of time-endings right now, I’m not appreciating that hourglass. ❤ Time feels very real to me as does mortality. I hope that we aren't simply biological creatures and that the hourglass turns over for eternity. In the meantime, I don't intend to waste the grains of sand I have left this time around, and I'll create stories of adventure, real and imagined, whenever and wherever I can.

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    • I feel your sensation of loss and love, Diana. As we age and our loved ones leave us because of the end of their hourglass, we feel those sands of time even more acutely. But like the sand underneath the ocean, I believe that sand is never-ending – as is so with our energy. Make it so … and keep on writing your amazing books. PLEASE!

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  19. Stories make our life…life may be measured in hours or years but words win, they stay, they are immortal, they inspire many generations. I am sure we would be measured by words we leave behind. That is my answer to your musings Pam. You got me into a reflective mood. Thanks!

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  20. I don’t even know what to say to this, Pam, except that I will be thinking about it—in a good way—as time moves forward. We can’t know what’s at the end of that hourglass, but in my heart I know we’ll still be telling stories on the other side of time.

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  22. You know I will always MAKE TIME for one of your posts. There’s no TURNING BACK THE HANDS OF TIME, so I’ve learned to embrace that particular commodity. While none of us are probably doing cartwheels when we have another birthday (next week for me), there are some upsides. One is I’m at that point in my life where I seldom WASTE TIME.

    The remarkable thing about language is the infinite ways we can put words together to build stories, You do that better than most, Pamela.

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    • Pete – Happy Birthday!! It’s my guy’s birthday this coming week as well. Every year he says, “I’m not having a birthday,” but that sand keeps on moving, regardless. 😉
      Congrats on winning my Twin Desires contest (and thank you for your wonderful response to The Trash Plan). Please PM me on my e-mail (pam.wight@colettawight.net) and let me know if you’d prefer the softback or Kindle version. I can sign the softback – not so with the e-book. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • Sheesh, now I feel like an absolute dunce. I didn’t notice that I was the winner of the conclusion of The Trash Man post, or I would have thanked you. I will PM you with my details after this comment.

        Your guy wasn’t born on Dec. 7th, was he? I was the kid in elementary school who always knew the answer when my teachers would ask, “Does anyone know what happened in history today?” That’s what happens when you’re born on Pearl Harbor Day?

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  24. Life has been too sad this year, so I am trying not to focus on time running out, but it really does. That image of the hourglass for that soap opera used to really get me when I was a kid.

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  27. Thoreau wrote, “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” He understood the difference between the two senses of time contained in the Greek language: chronos, the tick-tocking of the clock, the passage of our measured weeks and months, and kairos — the present in which we’re wholly present in the world. Publication dates are determined by chronos, but stories are born when the time — the kairos — is right.

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    • Reading your excellent (thoughtful and amazing) comment just gave me goosebumps. Henry David is one of my favorites – his quotes are timeless. (And he lived just down the street a bit from where I live now). His wisdom shines from generation to generation, which proves my point about the hourglass just turning over as we continue, in whatever form. ❤

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    • Words are my passion and my way of discovering the power and glory and love in all of life. So, thank you so much Donna! And yes, words will not be forgotten (don’t ask me to remember 2 + 2 though). 🙂

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  30. I hope that when the last grain of my sand is through the narrow part of the hourglass I am turned over to start again. I like telling stories, I like living life to have the stories to tell.

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    • Thanks, Bernadette. I never thought of it that way either until I was studying the photo of the hourglass, beginning my little thoughts here, and then, YES, perhaps we, our life, our stories, go on once we’re turned upside down (or right side up?) again. 🙂

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  33. I am with many in that I love your phrase: “Personally, I’d like to think that my days are worded. My days are stories, one-by-one as a child, then a dozen, then hundreds as the years roll on.” Absolutely. How we use our time is relative. Daydreaming is a wonderful use of it (just not so much when your boss catches you…) I love the idea that our lifetime on earth is represented by the hourglass that moves at various paces. At the end of this one, it is flipped for the next, whatever that may be). Wonderful read as always, Pam.

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  36. Hi Pam, this is such an interesting post. The passing of time became a lot more noticeable to me after I had my children. Watching them change and grow was incredible and made me really take note of the passage of time as they moved through the stages to babyhood, toddlerhood, childhood and now teenagehood and young adulthood. It is a mixture of surreal and scary.

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  39. Time. I think time is subjective as you alluded to. I think what time and words have in common is that they both tell stories. When your time is up, another chapter begins. Time is a cycle, just like stories have a beginning and an end. Sometimes I wish I have all the time in the world to write. Then again, it’s not that bad taking time out from writing and do something else that’s fun. Hope you are well, Pam. Wishing you a wonderful end of the year and year ahead 😊💕

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  40. The perfect post for me to come back here to find you once again saying it perfectly. I love everything about this post. My days have been numbered for a long time and somehow, I keep adding to the numbers. I think we can create our own time if need be. I know it can be manipulated. Some days I want to speed it up and in the next breath, I want to slow it down. I know for certain that when we leave here, we make all the arrangements for the next challenge and start all over again. This wasn’t my first rodeo and probably not the last. I was addressing your card to be mailed this weekend and was going to ask if you were on hiatus. Now I know the truth. I got bumped by WP. I’ve missed your posts and will be catching up “after Christmas”. I’m always behind. ;(

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  42. I am *definitely* a wordy girl, not a numbers girl! I’m heading into my twilight years (yeah, my age starts with a 7 – and ends with a 7 too!), and I have hundreds of books on my Kindle. still to read. Ay yi. (I found a site for free ebooks several years ago. Shh.) Anyhow, good to share some words here with you. And keep yours comin’!

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  44. What a beautiful and thought provoking post. Yes: every day is a story and we get a chance to write and create it the way we choose. Keep writing and journaling. As for time, as I get older it’s becoming more and more irrelevant. The best thing we can do is simply live in the now moment. Sending best wishes 💗

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