Tag: time flies

Posted in Moments of grace

Enjoy the sprinkles

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I’ve learned a lot about living in the moment from my grandchildren. For the most part, their lives are all about right now. They have no calendar, no to-do list, no appointments, and no notifications.

A couple of the granddaughters live out this truth before my eyes at the donut shop. Their donut choice is always the same: pink icing with sprinkles. We sit at a table and they get to work.

While I would polish off a donut like that in four or five bites, they start with the sprinkles. They pick up and savor every sprinkle one by one. As you might imagine, this takes at least ten minutes.

Next comes the icing. There are two ways to do this. You can lick the icing off the top of the donut. Or you can put it in your mouth one finger full at a time. Either way, this step isn’t over until the donut has been completely de-iced. This will take another ten minutes.

Now it’s time for the donut itself. The proper way to do this is to take little bites all the way around the top of the donut. A few times around the donut and you’re done. Except for the icing around your mouth, and crumbs on you lap, the table, the chair and the floor.

The process takes at least thirty minutes. For those thirty minutes, though, nothing else matters. Time is immaterial. It’s just you and the donut, alone in the universe.

Will they always be slow, intentional eaters? Will they always savor every morsel? Or will they learn to wolf down a couple of donuts between the drive thru window and the interstate? Who knows.

It’s astounding…time is fleeting…unless you slow down to enjoy the sprinkles.

Posted in Moments of grace

Forever? Or just a moment?

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

It feels like this is going to go on forever.

I know it hasn’t been that long. It just feels like it. This is July. It was back in March when we first became concerned in our community. Churches stopped gathering for worship, restaurants closed, doctors cancelled appointment, nursing homes and hospitals restricted visitors, toilet paper flew off supermarket shelves and we started wearing masks.

It’s been four months. We’re worshiping at church, but at a distance. A few can go to restaurants. I’ve caught up on doctor appointments. There’s plenty of toilet paper but hardly any hand soap at the store. More people are wearing masks. And the news is still mostly about Covid-19. It feels like it’s been four years. I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I wake up every morning to the same news. More people are sick, more people are dying, more people are wearing masks, and more people are angry about wearing masks.

Is there an end in sight? Yesterday I read that most of the research to find a cure or produce a vaccine has yielded little if any results. Those who like to make predictions estimate it will take five to ten years to get past this. If we do at all. It already feels like we’ve been doing it that long.

During a phone conversation today, though, I realized it’s almost been a year since my dad died. A whole year? Already? Those eleven months have flown by. Time is time. It passes at a constant rate. So why is my perception of time so different when applied to different chapters of my life. Why does time sometimes seem so long, like the line to get on the roller coaster, and other times short, like the ride itself? Why do the first hundred miles of a long trip pass quickly, while the last 100 seems to take forever?

Plenty of people have asked that question. How many have come up with an answer? None that I know of. I do know that time passes because I measure it. I watch the clock, I have a schedule, I have events on my calendar and appointments to keep.

Sometimes on my day off, I take off my watch. I don’t worry about the time. And when I do that, time doesn’t bother me, either. On those days I’m never late, I’m never rushed, it’s OK if I have to wait for something or someone. I find that fascinating. It’s like I can step away from time when I need to. I should probably do that more often.