Time Gone Madly By

The world spins on

I don’t know who said it first, but there’s a lot of truth in the old saying that “When you’re young, the days fly and the years drag, and when you’re older, the days drag and the years fly.”

I would add that once you’re out of the rat race, the days and years both fly.

This hit me pretty hard a few weeks ago on a late-October evening about a half-hour before sunset when I was playing Frisbee with Ruby and I sent one flying pretty high into the silhouette of a leafless tree and a sky the color of burnt orange. What hit me was that I’d seen this before, and not all that long ago. There had been an autumn evening just like it the year before and the year before that. I scanned the woods to my left and where only a week earlier the trees had been at peak color (gold and brown here, nothing all that fiery), they were now bare and unprotected against the coming winter.

Again.

Everything is again.

The detaching of the garden hose. The carpet of catalpa leaves on the deck. The frost and the chill and the holidays, faster and faster every year. Halloween decorations go up and down. Hours of Thanksgiving-dinner prep and mealtime goes by in minutes. Christmas decorations go up and I empathize with everyone who finds themselves looking for last-minute gifts.

Not all of them are inveterate procrastinators. Not all of them lack the Christmas spirit. Some of them just can’t believe the season is here.

Again.

The earth keeps spinning. It spins at the same rate for all of us, so there’s really no good reason the path to Christmas is interminable for a seven-year-old and one baby step for me. We judge time based on how quickly it brings us what we want. The seven-year-old wants a new bike. I want days that last for weeks and years that last for decades.

The wait for the bicycle will eventually pay off.

Back in September I lost a first cousin, the oldest of Viola Wilson’s grandchildren, in an accident. There are eleven of us left. That number will never get larger. My mother has no siblings left and only one sister-in-law. The earth keeps spinning.

I don’t mind that it spins winter to us and while I’m usually ready for warmth and baseball I can’t help being aware that spring and summer fly just as fast and just as inexorably toward leafless silhouettes and burnt orange skies and the next autumn evening that will once again remind me of how quickly it all goes by.

Again and again.

A Song on the Subject

If you’re looking for the absolute best song about the relentless march of time, look no further than Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going.” I actually like Tom Rush’s version best, but Joni’s is a close second and Dave Van Ronk does a pretty nice growly rendition too.

The song below, “Mystery of Time,” should probably never be mentioned in the same breath as “Urge for Going.” There’s a recording of it but I don’t think I’m the right person to do the vocals so you’ll have to be satisfied with the lyrics. I’m particularly happy with the phrase “time gone madly by” and you probably shouldn’t be surprised if that turns up as the title of a paperback collection of my Substack work.

In any event, here’s Mystery of Time.

A day begins

The world spins

In the frozen chill of space

An old man sees

His memories

Confusing time and place

The mirror lies

Deceives the eyes

And hides the child within

No switch is thrown

To be full grown

It’s the sum of where you’ve been

I finally see

This mystery

Of time gone madly by

We travel on

The eons gone

And never knowing why