It's time.
I see it in your eyes and the way your little body moves through your days. Your relationship with time is so different from my own. To you, time is endless. Yes, you recognize as each day starts to draw to a close. The slanting light of late afternoon often prompts the question: “Mama, is it evening time?”
But time as a whole, as a massive, mysterious, unfolding proposition? To you, it is without boundaries. And with that openness comes the gift of limitless possibility.
My relationship with time is different. Time now filters through my maturity. I am increasingly aware of the sense that a great clock is ticking. Much as I might wish it otherwise, your hands will not always be so soft, your eyes so innocent. And I will not always be here to hold those hands and provide comfort after each fall.
This growing sense of a finite span of time is something I’m navigating. Some days, I follow you. We immerse ourselves in unstructured wonder and I feel the ticking fade. Other days, I push and prod an agenda. And sometimes the ticking grows so loud, I cannot ignore the accompanying grief.
Sad as the finite nature of your youth and my life might make me, there is a greater ticking clock, one that I also can no longer ignore. The gears in this clock were wound by a perverse relationship to the earth, driven by greed and ignorance. Incredible and inspiring individuals are working to unwind this clock, to slow it, to change the nature of its chimes. But when it tolls, if it tolls, the unfurling challenge to your life and to the lives of so many of the living beings that fill your eyes with wonder will be incomprehensible.
I am glad that you know not of either of these clocks – yet. When I feel overwhelmed by their speed, one of the greatest medicines I find lies in your dance with your days and the eyes of your little brother. I sit back and breathe and watch you move. You are not driven by fear, panic, or the need to accomplish certain goals before it is too late. Possibility, imagination and delight propel you. There is no rush. I look into the eyes of your brother, so little he does not even ask: “Mama, is it evening time?” He just looks and looks and is not afraid. He is opening up to the world. Everything is possible.
Someday, you both will learn that this is not, in fact, true. Time is finite. Possibilities are finite. We each must make choices. These choices determine how we fill the numbered hours of our lives, yes. More importantly, these choices determine whether or not that greater clock will chime, the one that signifies the future of life on this planet.
When you become aware of both of these clocks, I hope you do not lose your sense of wonder. I hope you continue to move propelled not by fear, but by love. Yes, I feel grief as I notice my years passing with increasing speed. And yes, the ticking of that second clock often feels like a hand gripping around my heart, especially when I am looking at you or your brother.
But I do not let the grief stop me, nor do I allow that hand on my heart to close tight. My days are numbered, yes. A great shadow looms over the future of life on this planet, yes. But within the fact that we each must make choices lies the greatest antidote of all – we each get to make choices. We can choose fear, paralysis, and despair. Or we can choose to let the ticking of time serve as our best inspiration. We can engage in each moment fully. We can use our finite days to honor life, both our individual allotted time and all the beautiful, powerful life churning around us on this planet. We can change the toll of the second clock by moving through each moment with conscious celebration.
The two greatest sounds I have heard in my life were the first breaths taken by you and your little brother. If the fates are kind, I will not hear your final breaths, or at least not in the form I now take. You will outlive me. But in this wild time, this time in which each moment is laden with meaning and in which our actions will determine the future of life on this planet, may my choice to celebrate life and continue to move from hope live on in you.