How do you slice up your day? What do you put first? What do you do when you first get up? How does your day unfold from there? Does it vary from day to day, or are you a machine of routine, a mountain of repeating rituals?
Time, I am aware of as a flexible construct. To me, TIME is a foreign concept. It is an Swiss idea, made law by Northern Europeans desperate for a means of controlling the harsh realities of their ancestral weather and the need to parse out moments into useful chucks for agriculture. Farming, planting, and harvesting within the narrow band of spring, summer, and WOOPS you better get moving, because it is HARVEST time, autumn or fall arrives with merciless winds on its tail.
Time is a sand dial in the face of absurdity, a trickling remnant of the industrial revolution. Time is a horn, telling you what to do. Time is the LUNCH bell. Time is all those intrusive little blings and noises our “Smart Phones,” make. Reminding us that we must GO! GO! GO! Time is the slave master and his or her whip. We must run, before traffic, before the tourists arrive in swarms.
Despite our rushing, due to the fact that reality happens on its own schedule, TIME remains pretty flexible.
It stops. Time just stops, runs real slow, sometimes… when you are waiting for a boring lecture to finish, for example. Then it speeds up when you spend time with a best friend and LOOK you are gotta go. Time OVER. Done. How did that happen?
I sometimes get lost in projects. Time flies out the window, when I’m really writing, reading, painting, and/or complaining about not getting to do what I must. Interviewing, hiring, and firing eats up moments that might be spent, elsewhere. Yet, Chronos doesn’t control me because… I often ignore the old child-eating monster. I live by my own internal clock, thank goodness. I get up way early, because that works for me. I write best before distractions take over the day. I write best when the silence of the purple pre-dawn etches its name on my windowsill.
Then there is breakfast. I LOVE making breakfast for my family. I do. I’m big on it being the most important meal. Thus, I start with tea. I like mine milky, with stars in it, like a photograph by Ed Valfre, it goes down smooth. I make a big pot and pour some for my family. The sizzle of the skillet wakes me up further and tofu sausages are not out of the question. It varies, what we eat, but I always turn on the stove.
This week we had:
Sushi Rice Pudding with Coconut
Rollmops with Eggs and Salmon Caviar, the day before.
Organic almond milk, papaya, kale, goji-berry, raw cacao, and vanilla vegan Smoothy
Schwartzbrot mit Nutella and heaping cups of jersey cow yogurt and blueberries.
I cook, which takes time, but is so much better than exposing myself to the horrors of FAST FOOD, which is not so fast… if you consider how much it slows you down when you are fifty pounds overweight. (I’m sorry, but, I’ve not arrived at the point when ordering a seat belt extension is OK. Come on, people… stop it with the brand name garbage food! Invest time in eating foods that are minimally processed and LOOK for the organics, demand them for your family) If you are determined you can and will find a way to increase your intake of health food.
Eating enough organic kale, a box of it is less expensive than what ever budget meal you fork over a fortune for. Seven dollars, or less will buy you, rice, kale, and tofu for a homemade lunch *add a little garlic and salt, olive oil and KABOOM you are eating like a healthy California surfer DUDE!
Party ON!
An investment of time, which will pay in dividends and appreciation, is looking for organic food to eat with your family.
The day proceeds from there and it marches on in style when you have started it right. Meditation in the morning. Prayer. Sending love to the sick people. Making sure you get out of bed slowly or quickly enough to launch a lovely day is an art form. Guten morgen, Baby! Rise and get out there with a willingness to make today a worthwhile addition to a string of good days.
It really makes a difference, what you do in the morning. It sets the tone for the rest of the day.
So, make time for breakfast, pretty please!
Even when the clock which ticks to is own beat is out of sync with all other clocks it still operates as a drum would in battle. It keeps movement flowing at a rhythm in step with fate. Ah, Fortuna! You! There is a slim chance that you encounter life as a series of staccato beats, reasons to run from one job to the next gig, a life sprinkled with inhales and the end made elegant by a deep exhale into the mud.
IF so… keep to it, fighter. Yet, you are not to be picked for the Frau Kolb & The Talkinggrid, winning team, while snoring on the battlefield of an eternal rush-hour.