An Unexpected Evening

I am sitting in the living room of my apartment with the patio door wide open. According to the thermometer it is 59 degrees outside and sliding down from a beautiful day. The evening was especially beautiful tonight, calm, balmy, with just a hint of a breeze. It was an unexpected evening.

I am sitting in the living room, mostly in silence. I can hear the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall, the clock that is slowly losing time - a minute or so a day. I don't know how long I have had it, probably well past it's life-cycle, considering it was probably less than $20 when I bought it long ago. I have two other clocks visible from where I generally sit in the living room, both of them satellite clocks, so I really have the kitchen wall clock more out of habit that anything else.

There is the sound of the refrigerator kicking on, the compressor and the fan, not loud, but a soft white hum in the background. There is the sound of my fingers dancing over the keyboard here on my laptop, writing this entry. If I close my eyes and listen there are incidental sounds coming in through the open door, the sounds of traffic and distant, indistinguishable voices, some belonging to children, some to adults.

The evening seems to be moving slowly, which is nice considering that my principle complaint over the last year or so has been the speed with which time is passing by. I have adopted a mantra that works, at times, when I am feeling overwhelmed by the pace of this life and that is a simple "slow, slow, slow" to remind me that a lot of the pressure, a lot of the rush that I feel is self-inflicted and that I do have it in my power to take a deep breath and slow things down.

I wonder at the passage of time, I wonder at my perception of the passage of time. I haven't gotten any magical insights or penetrating observations - time passes and I experience it's passage at a variety of speeds. Evenings like tonight seem rare, when I don't feel rushed and I don't feel hurried and I don't feel like there are a dozen things that I should be doing instead of simply just sitting here. I am just sitting here.

I was going to go sit outside for a while tonight, but I learned to my amusement that I had put the seat cushions on my favorite chair out a little early - and it rained on them - and the only thing I would have gotten sitting down would have been a wet butt. I can pass on that tonight.

My beloved T.R. is traveling for work, and I always miss her when she is. Her work can be very time consuming, twelve to fourteen hour days, a quick bite, a hot shower, sleep and repeat tends to lead to the whirlwind passage of time, or perhaps to a sense of timelessness. When she is traveling I miss her and I practice patience.

So tonight, on this unexpected evening, I am practicing simplicity and patience and silence.