Time On My Hands

Last Friday night we took what has become a rare happening this summer - a night off - and drove down to Columbus to the stunning Ohio Theatre to watch the movie "Wings," a 1927 silent film which has held up well in the 80+ years since it was released.

The Ohio Theatre is a 1928 movie palace that was saved from the wrecking ball 40 years ago and is now touted as an early example of the public and cultural value of historic preservation. Over the years, it has been restored to its original appearance. Entering the auditorium is a visual feast.

Add to the setting the brilliant playing of house organist Clark Wilson on the Mighty Morton theatre organ and we had a wonderful night. The Morton, original to the theatre, was also restored along the way. In fact, Warren, who has run a small business for over 30 years doing custom restoration and building of percussion instruments, has worked on the "harps" of the organ - the marimba, xylophone, vibes, and orchestra bells - by rebuilding the mallets. The organist made heavy use of the percussion during the film, and I squeezed Warren's hand more than once when I heard the bells.

This post is not about the Ohio Theatre, theatre organs, Wings, or even historic preservation, a topic I can write oodles about. It is about making time when I think there is none to be had.

It has been an unusually busy summer around here. This is our first summer in this house - Warren's house - and there has been a lot of yard work even before you count the gardens (which were my doing, of course).

Add to that both our jobs - his full time and mine not (thankfully, gratefully), volunteer activities (primarily mine), concerts, Warren finishing off two percussion orders that had to be shelved way too long as we made the move into this house last fall and set up his shop this spring, children coming and going, my medical appointments, and just the daily tumble of life.

My plate is heaped to overflowing and even though I am holding up my hand saying "no thanks, I really don't want any more mashed potatoes," Life has a full scoop of them ready to plop down right there between the broccoli and the lamb cutlets.

When Warren and I started seeing one another, we had long talks about our schedules and our wishes when it came to a relationship. We both put a high priority on making sure we have enough time for one another that does not always consist of comparing notes across a late night snack because one or the other of us missed dinner because of another commitment.

We have held pretty well to that, but I have noticed our meals and down time becoming more clipped and businesslike lately as the pressures mount and time becomes a precious commodity.

I am plagued (or blessed) by a strong sense of personal time left. As I get older and given my permanent move to Cancerland in 2004, I feel more and more that there is only "so much" of me left. I want to live deliberately. I want to savor as many small moments of great reward for as long as I am able.

I want to watch a movie while holding Warren's hand.

I keep notebooks of quotes and more than a few of them have to do with time. Apparently, this is a recurring theme in my life. There is one by Susan Marsh that fits my mood today: …there is no thick of things. We just create a whirlwind of activity for ourselves and spin around in it until we're tired and dizzy and want to leap off.

Marsh ended by saying she was in the middle of a leap.

I wish I was.

I think I need to be.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, whose letters and diaries have graced my life for decades, also wrote about time. In Gift From the Sea (a timeless work), Anne wrote:

There is so little empty space. The space is scribbled on, the time has been filled. There are so few pages in my engagement pad, or empty hours in the day, or empty rooms in my life in which to stand alone and find myself. Too many activities, and people, and things. Too many worthy activities, valuable things, and interesting people. For it is not merely the trivial which clutters our lives, but the important as well. We can have a surfeit of treasures.

I told Warren last night that I feel that lately I have not had time to decompress and pull my thoughts together. There is so little empty space. This week and next are full and while it is easy in theory to say "so cut something out," the reality is much harder. Even if I can shift a meeting by a week, there is still the zucchini in the refrigerator.

And shifting a meeting by a week sounds suspiciously like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

In the end, I am the one who controls my time, despite wanting to point to anything else but me and say "Oh, there's the problem!" I know that. I'm just having trouble facing up to it.

Many years ago, my first year torts professor told us "a man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure." He was talking about reading the law, but the analogy fits my life today.

I know what time it is. It is time to take off my watches.